#What do business professionals need to know about software? How many types of applications exist?

How do organizations obtain them?

*Softwares are programs that run on top of an operating system and perform a particular service or
function.
*There are three types of applications.
*Horizontal-market application software provides capabilities common across all industries. Examples
are word processors, graphics programs, spreadsheets and presentation programs.
They can be purchased off the shelf. They can be bought directly or downloaded from the online store.
*Vertical-market application software serves the needs of a specific industry. Examples include
accounting softwares, canvas, software used by dental offices to schedule appointments and bill patients,
those used by auto mechanics to keep track of customer data, those used by warehouses to keep track of
inventory, sales and purchases.
They can usually be altered or customized and the companies who sold them will provide such services or
will refer to qualified consultants.
*One-of-a-kind application is developed for a specific, unique need. Examples are HSBC ATM software,
BOC ATM, Touch screen ordering systems at AC1.
They are custom developed.

#What should be noted when developing custom-developed software?

*Pro: the org can tailor its application to meet its requirements.
*Such development should be done only in situations where the needs of the organization are so unique
that no horizontal or vertical applications are available.
*Managing such software projects is risky and difficult because of the possibility of overcosts, team
management issues and overrunning of time than it is planned.
*The project also needs to adapt to changing needs and changing technologies.

#What is the purpose of a database?

*To keep track of different kinds of data, e.g., customer data, transaction data, sales data, HR data,
accounting records

#How is a database preferred compared to a spreadsheet?

*A spreadsheet can only store a list of data involving a single theme whereas databases can store lists that
involve data with multiple themes.
*Student grades only vs. student grade, student emails, office visits by students
#What is a database?
*A database is a self-describing collection of integrated records.
*A database has its hierarchy of its data elements, which are byte, columns(fields), rows(records),
table(file).
*A byte is a character of data. In databases, bytes are grouped into columns, also called fields. Columns
or fields are in turn grouped into rows, which are also called records.
A group of similar rows or records is called a table or a file.

#Is a database just a group of tables or files?

*No, a database is a collection of tables plus relationships among rows in those tables, plus special data
called meta data, that describes the structure of the database.

#What are the components of a database?

*They are tables or files, relationships among rows in tables and metadata.
*Tables or files are the place where we store our data.
*Relationships among rows of different tables make the database more meaningful.
*Metadata describes the structure of database.

#What are primary keys and foreign keys?

*A key, also called primary key, is a column or group of columns that identifies a unique row in a table.
*Every table must have a key.
*Sometimes, more than one column is needed to form a unique identifier.
*Foreign keys are keys of a different(foreign) table than the one in which they reside to form
relationships.
*Primary keys and foreign keys are the linkage between tables.

#What is a relational database?

*Databases that carry their data in the form of a table and that represent their relationships using foreign
keys are called relational databases.

#What is metadata?
*Metadata are data that describes data in a database, eg.field name, data type and field properties which
describe the default value of column.
*They are always a part of database.
*The presence of metadata makes databases much more useful.
*Because of metadata, no one needs to guess, remember or record what is in the database.

#What is a database management system DBMS?

*is a program used to create, process and administer a database. Popular DBMS are DB2 from IBM,
Access and SQL Server from Microsoft and Oracle database from Oracle corporation, and
MySQL is a open source DBMS product that is license free for most applications.

#What are the four processing operations of a DBMS?

*DBMS provides an application for four processing operations: to read, insert, modify and delete data.
*These operations are requested in application calls upon the DBMS.
*From a form, when the user enters new or changed data, a computer program behind it calls DBMS to
make the necessary database changes.
*From a web application, a program on the client or server application programs calls the DBMS to make
the change.

#What is SQL?
*Structured Query Language (SQL) is an international standard language for processing a database.
*SQL can also be used to create databases and database structures.
*used by many popular DBMS products

#What is a database application?

*is a collection of forms, reports, queries and application programs that serves as an intermediary between
users and database data.
*Database application reformat database table data to make it more informative, and more easily updated.
*Application programs also have features that provide security, maintain data consistency and handle
special cases.

#What are the specific purposes of four elements of database application?

*Forms: view data, insert data, update data, delete data
*Reports: structured representation of data using sorting, grouping, filtering and other operations
*Queries: search based upon data values provided by users
*Application programs: provide security, data consistency, handle special purpose processing

#Draw a processing environment of a traditional database application.

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*A traditional database is shared among many users. Application resides on the users' computers and the
DBMS and database resides on a server computer.
*An organizational network, not Internet, is used to transmit traffic back and forth between the users'
computers and the DBMS server.

#Draw a processing environment of browser-based database application. (Not needed, but you can try if
interested)
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*The databases in thin-client applications are nearly always shared among many users.
*The users connect over the Internet to a Web server computer which in turn connects to a database
server computer.
*Thin-client applications run in a browser and need not be preinstalled on the users' computers.
*In most cases, all of the code for generating and processing the application elements is shared between
the user's computers and the server.

#What is the problem of multiuser processing?

*When the two users have processed the same information and proceeded to perform the same activity
with the database, resulting in one of the users not getting the intended result
*because of the failure of the database application to coordinate the latest activities of users
*Online show tickets being sold out

#What is the entity-relationship data model?

*is a data model, with which developers describe the content of database by defining the entities that will
be stored in the database and the relationships among those entities.
#What is an entity?
*is something users want to track. Examples of entities are Order, Customer, Salesperson, and Item.

#What are attributes?

*Entities have attributes that describe characteristics of the entity.
*Examples of attributes of the entity, Order, are OrderNumber, OrderDate, SubTotal and Tax.

#What is an identifier?
*Entities have an identifier, which is an attribute or group of attributes whose value is associated with one
and only one entity instance.
*For example, OrderNumber is an identifier of Order because only one Order instance has a given value
of OrderNumber.

#What is normalization?
*is the process of converting poorly structured tables into two or more well-structured tables so that each
table consists of a single theme only.
*Normalization is used to eliminate data integrity problems, which arise from duplicated data.

#What is data integrity problem?

*can occur when data is duplicated, especially when wrongly duplicated.
*data integrity problems produce inconsistent and incorrect information.
*users lose confidence in the information and the system will develop a bad reputation.

#Explain the tradeoffs between normalization and system efficiency.

*Normalization eliminates data integrity problems by converting poorly structured tables into two or
more tables.
*However, to produce a report consisting of those tables, tables need to be joined back together,
increasing the processing time.
*Thus, we can see that normalization eliminates data duplication, but it can be slower to process.
*Because of such tradeoffs, designers need to evaluate the users' requirements on whether to accept non-
normalized tables or not.
#How to transform a data model into a database design?
*Step 1 - Represent each entity with a table.
Entity identifier will become a table key.
Entity attributes will become a table column.
*Step 2 - Normalize tables if necessary which means if they are duplicated.
*Step 3 - Represent relationships.
Use foreign keys to represent relationship in 1:N relationship.
Use additional tables to represent relationship in N:M relationship.