Database

Week 8 – Database Design

Dr. Hasan TINMAZ
Woosong University
Endicott College of International Studies
 The Database Life Cycle (DBLC)

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 Purpose of Database Initial Study

Analyze company Define problems and

situation constraints

Define scope and

Define objectives
boundaries

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 A- Database Initial Study
 Analyze the Company Situation: The company situation describes
the general conditions in which a company operates, its
organizational structure, and its mission.
 The following issues must be resolved:
 What is the organization’s general operating environment, and what is
its mission within that environment?
 What is the organization’s structure? Knowing who controls what
and who reports to whom is quite useful

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 A- Database Initial Study
 Define Problems and Constraints: Even the most complete and
accurate problem definition does not always lead to the perfect
solution.
 The real world usually intrudes to limit the design of even the
most elegant database by imposing constraints such as time,
budget, and personnel.
 If you must have a solution within a month and within a
$12,000 budget, you cannot take two years to develop a
database at a cost of $100,000.
 The designer must learn to distinguish between what’s perfect and
what’s possible.

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 A- Database Initial Study
 Define Objectives: The database designer must begin to address
the following questions:
 What is the proposed system’s initial objective?
 Will the system interface with other existing or future systems
in the company?
 Will the system share the data with other systems or users?

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 A- Database Initial Study
 Define Scope and Boundaries: The system’s scope defines the
extent of the design according to operational requirements.
 Will the database design encompass the entire organization, one
or more departments within the organization, or one or more
functions of a single department?
 Boundaries are external to the system. Boundaries are also
imposed by existing hardware and software.

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 A Summary of Activities in the
Database Initial Study

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 B - Database Design
 Supports company’s operations and objectives
 Checks the ultimate final product from all perspectives
 As you examine the procedures required to complete the design phase
in the DBLC, remember these points:
 The process of database design is loosely related to the analysis and
design of a larger system.
 The data component is only one element of a larger information
system.
 The systems analysts or systems programmers are in charge of
designing the other system components.
 Their activities create the procedures that will help transform the data
within the database into useful information.
 The database design does not constitute a sequential process.
 Rather, it is an iterative process that provides continuous feedback
designed to trace previous steps.

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 Two Views of Data: Business Manager and
Database Designer

There are two views of the

data within the system:
the manager view of data as a
source of information and
the designer’s view of the
data structure, its access, and
the activities required to
transform the data into
information.
Note that you can
summarize the different
views by looking at the
terms what and how.

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 Database Design Process

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 C- Implementation and Loading
 Install the DBMS:
 Virtualization: The installation of a new instance of the
DBMS on a virtual server running on shared hardware.
 Create the databases:
 Requires the creation of special storage-related constructs to
house the end-user tables
 Load or convert the data:
 Requires aggregating data from multiple sources

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 D – Testing and Evaluation
 Test the Database: you must test for at least the following:
 Physical security allows only authorized personnel physical access to
specific areas. Depending on the type of database implementation,
however, establishing physical security might not always be practical.
For example, a university student research database is not a likely
candidate for physical security.
 Password security allows the assignment of access rights to specific
authorized users. Password security is usually enforced at login time
at the operating system level.
 Access rights can be established through the use of database software.
The assignment of access rights may restrict operations (CREATE,
UPDATE, DELETE, and so on) on predetermined objects such as
databases, tables, views, queries, and reports.

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 D – Testing and Evaluation
 Test the Database: you must test for at least the following:
 Audit trails are usually provided by the DBMS to check for access
violations. Although the audit trail is an after-the-fact device, its mere
existence can discourage unauthorized use.
 Data encryption can render data useless to unauthorized users who
might have violated some of the database security layers.
 Diskless workstations allow end users to access the database without
being able to download the information from their workstations.

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 D – Testing and Evaluation
 Fine-Tune the Database: Database performance can be difficult to
evaluate because there are no standards for measuring it, but it is
typically one of the most important factors in database
implementation.
 Different systems will place different performance requirements
on the database.

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 D – Testing and Evaluation
 Evaluate the Database and Its Application Programs: Integration
issues and deployment plans are refined, user training is
conducted, and system documentation is finalized.
 Once the system receives final approval, it must be a sustainable
resource for the organization.
 To ensure that the data contained in the database is protected
against loss, backup and recovery plans are tested.

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 Levels of Database Backups
 Full backup/dump: All database objects are backed up in their
entirety
 Differential backup: Only modified/updated objects since last
full backup are backed up
 Transaction log backup: Only the transaction log operations
that are not reflected in a previous backup are backed up
 Backups are provided with high security.

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 E - Operation
 Once the database has passed the evaluation stage, it is
considered operational.
 At that point, the database, its management, its users,
and its application programs constitute a complete
information system.
 The demand for change is the designer’s constant
concern, which leads to phase 6, maintenance and
evolution.

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 F – Maintenance and Evolution
 The database administrator must be prepared to perform routine
maintenance activities within the database. Some of the required
periodic maintenance activities include:
 Preventive maintenance (backup)
 Corrective maintenance (recovery)
 Adaptive maintenance (enhancing performance, adding entities and
attributes, and so on)
 Assignment of access permissions and their maintenance for new and
old users
 Generation of database access statistics to improve the efficiency and
usefulness of system audits and to monitor system performance
 Periodic security audits based on the system-generated statistics
 Monthly, quarterly, or yearly system usage summaries for internal
billing or budgeting purposes.
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 Parallel Activities in the DBLC and the SDLC

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 DBMS Software Selection
 Cost
 DBMS features and tools
 Underlying model
 Portability
 DBMS hardware requirements

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 Top 10 Most
Popular
Databases -
2023

https://statisticsanddata.org/da
22 ta/the-most-popular-databases-
2006-2023/
 Reference:
 Coronel, C. & Morris, S.
(2019). Database Systems
Design Implementation and
Management (13th ed.)
Cengage Learning.

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