Name: Abdulhakeem Abdurrahman Olamide

Department: Computer Science

Course: Database Design I (Com 312)

Level: HNDI

Matric No: Hcsf/22/0002

Question 1
Discuss in details, your understanding of the following causes of
database failure.
i. System Crashes(hardware failure)

A system crash usually occurs when there is some sort of hardware or

software breakdown. Some other problems which are external to the
system and cause the system to abruptly stop or eventually crash include
failure of the transaction, operating system errors, power cuts, main
memory crash

ii. User Error

A user error is any error caused by the end user of the computer and not
the computer, hardware, or software running on the computer. An
example of a user error is a user who has deleted an important system file
because they thought it wasn't important.

iii. Carelessness

Carelessness is the destruction of data by operators or users because they

were not concentrating on the task at hand.

iv. Sabotage or Malicious damage

 Sabotage is the intentional corruption or destruction of data, hardware or
software facilities.

v. Statement Failure

A statement failure can be defined as the inability of the database to

execute an SQL statement. While running a user program, a transaction
might have multiple statements and one of the statements might fail due to
various reasons. Typical examples are selecting from a table that does not
exist, or trying to do an insert and having the statement fail due to lack of
space.

vi. Application Software Failure

Application software errors include logical errors in the program that is

accessing the database, which causes one or more transactions to fail.

vii. Network Failure

Network failures can occur while using a client-server configuration or a

distributed database system where multiple database servers are
connected by communication networks. Network failures such as
communication software failures or aborted asynchronous connections will
interrupt the normal operations of the database system.

viii. Media Failure

What is media failure in DBMS?
Media failure is an error caused by defects on the read and write
interfaces of storage devices, such as hard disk drives. This type of failure
might be hard to detect and prevent, so you must take measures to reduce
the impact of the failure if it occurs.
ix. Natural or Physical Failure

Natural and physical disasters are the damage caused to data,

hardware and software due to natural disasters like fires, floods,
earthquakes, power failures, etc.