What is a person place thing transaction or event about which information is stored?

Storing Organizational Information

Relational Database Fundamentals:

• Information is everywhere in an organization
• Information is stored in databases

Database – maintains information about various types of objects (inventory), events (transactions), people (employees), and places (warehouses)

Database models include:

1. Hierarchical database model – information is organized into a tree-like structure (using parent/child relationships) in such a way that it cannot have too many relationships – organizational chart
2. Network database model – a flexible way of representing objects and their relationships
3. Relational database model – stores information in the form of logically related two-dimensional tables

Entities and Attributes: 

Entity – a person, place, thing, transaction, or event about which information is stored

• The rows in each table contain the entities

Attributes (fields, columns) – characteristics or properties of an entity class

• The columns in each table contain the attributes

Keys and Relationships: 

Primary keys and foreign keys identify the various entity classes (tables) in the database

1. Primary key – a field (or group of fields) that uniquely identifies a given entity in a table
2. Foreign key – a primary key of one table that appears an attribute in another table and acts to provide a logical relationship between the two tables

Relational Database Advantages: 

Database advantages from a business perspective include

1. Increased flexibility 

• Handle changes quickly and easily
• Provide users with different views
• Have only one physical view – deals with the physical storage of information on a storage device
• Have multiple logical views – focuses on how users logically access information

2. Increased scalability and performance

A database must scale to meet increased demand while maintaining acceptable performance levels

• Scalability – refers to how well a system can adapt to
  increased demands
• Performance – measures how quickly a system
  performs a certain process or transaction

3. Reduced information redundancy

Databases reduce information redundancy

• Redundancy – the duplication of information or
  storing the same information in multiple places

Inconsistency is one of the primary problems with redundant information

4. Increased information integrity (quality)

Information integrity measures the quality of information. Integrity constraint rules that help ensure the quality of information

Relational integrity constraint – is used to ensure accuracy and consistency of data in a relational database.

• Users cannot create an order for a nonexistent customer.
• An order cannot be shipped without an address.

Business-critical integrity constraint –In database management, business-critical integrity constraints enforce a company’s rules.

5. Increased information security

Information is an organizational asset and must be protected and Databases offer several security features including:

• Password – provides authentication of the user
• Access level – determines who has access to the different types of information
• Access control – determines types of user access, such as read-only access

Data-driven Web sites – an interactive Web site kept constantly updated and relevant to the needs of its customers through the use of a database. A data-driven Web site invites visitors to select and view what they are interested in by inserting a query, which the Website then analyzes and custom builds a Web page in real-time that satisfies the query.

Data-Driven Web Site Business Advantages

1. Development
2. Content Management
3. Future Expandability
4. Minimizing Human Error
5. Cutting Production and Update Costs
6. More Efficient
7. Improved Stability

Data-Driven Business Intelligence (BI)

BI in a data-driven Web site – Web site can offer insight into the business, such as items browsed, frequent requests, items bought together, etc.

Integrating Information among Multiple Databases

• Integration – allows separate systems to communicate directly with each other – enter information into the systems once and it is automatically sent to all of the other systems throughout the organization
• Forward integration – takes information entered into a given system and sends it automatically to all downstream systems and processes
• Backward integration – takes information entered into a given system and sends it automatically to all upstream systems and processes

That’s all for chapter 7. Thanks for reading! 🙂

Integrating Information among