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Database - Advantages & Disadvantages
Database - Advantages & Disadvantages
Advantages Reduced data redundancy Reduced updating errors and increased consistency Greater data integrity and independence from applications programs Improved data access to users through use of host and query languages Improved data security Reduced data entry, storage, and retrieval costs Facilitated development of new applications program. Disadvantages Database systems are complex, difficult, and time-consuming to design Substantial hardware and software start-up costs Damage to database affects virtually all applications programs Extensive conversion costs in moving form a file-based system to a database system Initial training required for all programmers and users.
Data Dictionary
A data dictionary is simply a repository for information about the database data definitions and characteristic such as usage, physical representations, ownership, authorization, and security. The DBMS can access the data dictionary to determine the information it needs to operate. For example, the DBMS can access the data dictionary to, Determine if a data element already exists before adding. This reduces data redundancy Change the description of a data field. For Example, to change the description of a 20-position alphanumeric field to a 25-character alphanumeric field, only the description in the data dictionary need to be modified. Determine what relationship exists between the elements. Determine what applications programs can access what data elements.
The data dictionary is also useful to programmers and system analysts, A programmer can copy a definition directly from the data dictionary for use in an applications program. This guarantees greater accuracy with less work from the programmer. If a data description is changed, the data dictionary can be consulted to determine all affected applications programs.
DD Information The names associated with that element (aliases) A description of the data element in natural language Details of ownership Details of users that refer to the element Details of the systems and programs which refer to or update the element Details on any privacy constraints that should be associated with the item Details about the data element in data processing systems, such as the length of the data item in characters, whether it is numeric alphabetic or another data type, and what logical files include the data item. The security level attached to the element in order to control access. The total storage requirement The validation rules for each element (e.g. acceptable values) Details of the relationship of the data items to others
Foundation Rule A relational database management system must manage its stored data using only its relational capabilities.
1. Information Rule All information in the database should be represented in one and only one way - as values in a table.
2. Guaranteed Access Rule Each and every datum (atomic value) is guaranteed to be logically accessible by resorting to a combination of table name, primary key value and column name.
3. Systematic Treatment of Null Values Null values (distinct from empty character string or a string of blank characters and distinct from zero or any other number) are supported in the fully relational DBMS for representing missing information in a systematic way, independent of data type.
4. Dynamic On-line Catalog Based on the Relational Model The database description is represented at the logical level in the same way as ordinary data, so authorized users can apply the same relational language to its interrogation as they apply to regular data.
5. Comprehensive Data Sublanguage Rule A relational system may support several languages and various modes of terminal use. However, there must be at least one language whose statements are expressible, per some well-defined syntax, as character strings and whose ability to support all of the following is comprehensible: Data definition View definition Data manipulation (interactive and by program) Integrity constraints Authorization Transaction boundaries (begin, commit, and rollback). 6. View Updating Rule All views that are theoretically updateable are also updateable by the system.
7. High-level Insert, Update, and Delete The capability of handling a base relation or a derived relation as a single operand applies nor only to the retrieval of data but also to the insertion, update, and deletion of data.
8. Physical Data Independence Application programs and terminal activities remain logically unimpaired whenever any changes are made in either storage representation or access methods.
9. Logical Data Independence Application programs and terminal activities remain logically unimpaired when information preserving changes of any kind that theoretically permit unimpairment are made to the base tables.
10. Integrity Independence Integrity constraints specific to a particular relational database must be definable in the relational data sublanguage and storable in the catalog, not in the application programs.
11. Distribution Independence The data manipulation sublanguage of a relational DBMS must enable application programs and terminal activities to remain logically unimpaired whether and whenever data are physically centralized or distributed.
12. Nonsubversion Rule If a relational system has or supports a low-level (single-record-at-a-time) language, that low-level language cannot be used to subvert or bypass the integrity rules or constraints expressed in the higherlevel (multiple-records-at-a-time) relational language.