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Discussion post

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The proper implementation of a database is essential to the success of the data performance functions of an organization. Identify and evaluate at least three considerations that one must plan for when designing a database.

· Suggest at least two types of databases that would be useful for small businesses, two types for regional level organizations and two types for international companies. Include your rationale for each suggestion.

LP’s post states the following:Top of Form

Question:

The proper implementation of a database is essential to the success of the data performance functions of an organization. Identify and evaluate at least three considerations that one must plan for when designing a database.

Answer:

Planning is the most significant aspect of database design, and here is where most projects for database design will fail because the database does not meet requirements, does not meet expectations, or are just unmanageable. Here you need to be forward-thinking by planning for the future. What information needs to be stored or what things or entities do we need to store information about (Knauff, 2004)? What questions will we need to ask of the database (Knauff, 2004)?

A well-designed database promotes consistent data entry and retrieval and reduces the existence of duplication among the database tables. Relational database tables work together to ensure that the correct data is available when you need it.

The first consideration should be what is the database’s intended purpose. Understanding the purpose will help define the need. Some examples might be “to keep a list of customers,” “to manage inventory,” or “to grade students (Filemaker Staff, n.d.).” All stakeholders need to be involved in this process.

Second is Data integrity. Is the data accurate, consistent, and complete? What kind of categories does the data align with? Identifying these categories is critical to designing an efficient database because different types and amounts of data in each category will be stored. Some example categories might be sales that track “customers,” “products,” and “invoices,” or grades that track “students,” “classes,” and “assignments (Filemaker Staff, n.d.).” Once the categories have been defined the relations can be determined. A good exercise to help with this is to write these out in simple sentences:

“customers order products” and “invoices record customers’ orders.”

Now the organization of the data can begin. The categories above can be used as tables so common data can be grouped.

The third is security. Is the database secure? Will the current policy and rules be sufficient going forward? Who should have access? Who should have access to which tables (Nield, 2016)? Read-only access? Write access? Is this database critical to business operations (Nield, 2016)? What are the D&R plans?

Excessive security creates excessive red tape and obstructs agility, but insufficient security will invite catastrophe (Nield, 2016).

Question:

Suggest at least two types of databases that would be useful for small businesses, two types for regional level organizations, and two types for international companies. Include your rationale for each suggestion.

Answer: Initially, this was a tough answer to define because there are mainly five types of databases: Relational Database, Operational Database, Data Warehouse, Distributed Database, End-user Database. The more I looked this over, the stronger I felt it was more software (as type) related.

Two types of databases for a small business would be XML and MS Access. Most Business Office licensing comes with MS Access, so there is no additional expense. It has a GUI interface that allows for drag and drop interaction to build queries and relationships. XML is a simple flat file that can be easily read and displayed for XSLT or some code. Also, Microsoft offers Azure cloud services, which allows for any size business to have services they need at an affordable price, and they pay as they go.

Regional level databases could be SharePoint, which allows for regional and international collaboration, and uses SQL on the backend. Data can be stored and queried from SharePoint or from the SQL database where it is stored. Additionally, SQL and Azure cloud services would work well here. Azure SQL Database is the intelligent, scalable, cloud database service that provides the broadest SQL Server engine compatibility and up to a 212% return on investment (Microsoft Staff, 2020).

International level databases could be any of the databases mentioned above. One not mentioned is  Oracle. JTB Corporation, a leading tourism company in Japan, has adopted Oracle Cloud at Customer for in-house data use to support its international travel processing system infrastructure as part of its IT strategy towards 2020 (Oracle, 2018).

References

Filemaker Staff. (n.d.). About planning a database. Retrieved from Filemaker: https://fmhelp.filemaker.com/help/12/fmp/en/html/create_db.8.2.html

Knauff, B. (2004, October 14). Design Your Own Database Concept to Implementation. Retrieved from Dartmouth College: https://www.dartmouth.edu/~bknauff/dwebd/2004-02/DB-intro

Microsoft Staff. (2020). Azure SQL Database. Retrieved from Azure Microsoft: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/sql-database/

Nield, T. (2016, March 10). Get started with SQL: Plan and design a database. Retrieved from O’Reilly: https://www.oreilly.com/learning/get-started-with-sql-plan-and-design-a-database

Oracle. (2018, May 14). JTB Corporation Adopts Oracle Cloud for Its International Travel Processing System Infrastructure. Retrieved from Oracle: https://www.oracle.com/corporate/pressrelease/jtb-adopts-oracle-cloud-051418.html

EP’s post states the following:Top of Form

The proper implementation of a database is essential to the success of the data performance designing a database functions of an organization.  Identify and evaluate at least three considerations that one must plan for when designing a database. 

Planning and designing a database is not an easy task. There is much consideration that must be taken into account, but the three main ones I believe should be taken into consideration are usability, functionality, and security. The database should be user-friendly and should have features commonly used in other computing systems such as dropdowns, drag and drops and word searches. Security is a must since most network systems are connected to the Internet.

Even if a database does not have direct access to the Internet, there is a possibility that a host that has access to the database is. Security of a database should not be only logical; physical security measures must be implemented as well to prevent unauthorized users from physically accessing the database. As for the functionality, users must be able to search, filter data, add, remove, and make changes. If a user is unable to perform those tasks, then the database most probably will not meet the business requirements, making it inadequate.

Coronel, C., & Morris, S. (2017). Database systems: design, implementation and management.

Boston Ma: Cengage Learning.

The 10 Best Database Software Systems For Business Professionals

Suggest at least two types of databases that would be useful for small businesses, two types for regional level organizations, and two types for internationally wide companies. Include your rationale for each suggestion.

Two types of databases for small businesses are Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Access Database. Microsoft Excel is great because it already comes in Microsoft Office Suite, and it has many functionalities. A user can create relationships between the sheets, tables, and columns to create records that could be easily be searched and updated. As for Microsoft Access database is also a good candidate for because it provides businesses with a more robust solution when compared with Excel. The benefits of Microsoft Access database are that Access is cost-effective, scalable and it allows collaboration unlike Excel, where only one person could be working at a time.

For regional level organizations a SQL server, client-server based database is adequate for it. SQL databases are relational databases used widely by IT professionals, also providing different levels of bundled services based on the size of the organization. SQL express edition could be used for small databases. In case an organization outgrows the capacity, they can easily upgrade to another version of SQL, such as the Enterprise edition. As for international organizations, they have the availability of cloud databases from providers such as Amazon web services and Microsoft Azure. Microsoft provides SQL database services in the cloud, providing high availability and low latency from anywhere at any scale. Amazon also provides high availability and low latency from anywhere in the world. An added benefit of cloud-based database systems is that the services are on-demand, and the organizations can increase or decrease their usage as needed. In most cases, they can incur cost savings because they do not need to have an initial investment and also can turn off services when there is no usage. 

https://www.pcworld.com/article/3234335/excel-databases-creating-relational-tables.html

https://www.datanumen.com/blogs/5-reasons-small-businesses-choose-ms-access/

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/product-categories/databases/

https://aws.amazon.com/products/databases/