Database Management 2

Question 1

single-user database : supports only one user at a time. s-u database that runs on a personal PC is a desktop database.

workgroup database : supports a small number of users (usually less than 50).

enterprise database : more than 50 users in an enterprise across many dept.’s.

Centralized database : database that supports data located at a single site.
distributed database : database that supports data across several different sites.

Both centralized and distributed databases need hardware, OS, network, etc and is usually owned and maintained by the org. that creates and operates the database.

Answer 1

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Question 2

contain a wide variety of data used in multiple disciplines—for example, a census database that contains general demographic data and the LexisNexis and ProQuest databases that contain newspaper, magazine, and journal articles for a variety of topics. Discipline-specific databases contain data focused on specific subject areas. The data in this type of database is used mainly for academic or research purposes within a small set of disciplines. Examples of discipline-specific databases include financial data stored in databases such as CompuStat or CRSP (Center for Research in Security Prices), geographic information system (GIS) databases that store geospatial and other related data, and medical databases that store confidential medical history data.

Answer 2

General-Purpose Databases

Question 3

A database that is designed primarily to support a company’s day-to-day operations is classified as an operational database, also known as an online transaction processing (OLTP) database, transactional database, or production database.

Answer 3

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Question 4

focuses primarily on storing historical data and business metrics used exclusively for tactical or strategic decision making. Such analysis typically requires extensive “data massaging” (data manipulation) to produce information on which to base pricing decisions, sales forecasts, market strategies etc …

Answer 4

analytical database

Question 5

is a specialized database that stores data in a format optimized for decision support. The data warehouse contains historical data obtained from the operational databases as well as data from other external sources. Online analytical processing (OLAP) is a set of tools that work together to provide an advanced data analysis environment for retrieving, processing, and modeling data from the data warehouse.

Answer 5

The Data Warehouse

Question 6

is data that exists in its original (raw) state—that is, in the format in which it was collected. Therefore, unstructured data exists in a format that does not lend itself to the processing that yields information.

Answer 6

Unstructured Data

Question 7

is the result of formatting unstructured data to facilitate storage, use, and the generation of information.

Answer 7

Structured Data

Question 8

is a special language used to represent and manipulate data elements in a textual format. An XML database supports the storage and management of semistructured XML data.

Answer 8

Extensible Markup Language (XML)

Question 9

contains data about the things used to run day-to-day operations of a business.

Answer 9

Operational database

Question 10

data : Raw facts, such as a telephone number, a birth date, a customer name, and a year-to-date (YTD) sales value.

field : A character or group of characters (alphabetic or numeric) that has a specific meaning. A field is used to define and store data.

record : A logically connected set of one or more fields that describes a person, place, or thing. For example, the fields that constitute a record for a customer might consist of the customer’s name, address, phone number, date of birth, credit limit, and unpaid balance.

Answer 10

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