Data Analysis and Design: A Database System for Dominican College

This report provides a comprehensive analysis and design for a database system tailored for Dominican College, which aims to centralize and manage student lecture allocations. It begins with an overview of various data models, including the Entity Relationship (ER) model, relational model, object-oriented model, network model, and hierarchical database model, critically comparing their advantages and disadvantages. The report also discusses different database technologies such as flat file databases, cloud databases, relational databases, and distributed databases, evaluating their benefits and limitations. Furthermore, it analyzes top-down and bottom-up approaches to database design, illustrating the conceptual ER diagrams and logical diagrams relevant to Dominican College's specific requirements. The primary goal is to present a structured approach to designing an efficient and accessible database system for the college.

DATA ANALYSIS AND DESIGN

Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
LO1 Understand data models and database technologies................................................................4
1.1 Critically compares different data models and schemas...................................................4
1.2 Critically discusses the benefits and limitations of different database technologies........9
1.3 Analyze different approaches to database design................................................................12
Reference:......................................................................................................................................15
List of Figures
Figure 1 Top-down approach.........................................................................................................12
Figure 2 bottom-up approach.........................................................................................................13
Figure 3 conceptual ER diagrams of Dominican College.............................................................13
Figure 4 Logical diagram of the Dominican college.....................................................................14

Introduction
The database is a most important part of the digital life, which is used to store different types of
the data in the form of table. Main advantage of the database is that user can access the data and
information according to requirement and it is used to reduce the redundancy of the data and
information. The database is used to maintain the dataset. According to the scenario, the
Dominican College wants a database system and this college is located 15 miles northwest of
New York City. The college wants a database system to allocate the lecture to the students
according different course and units. But main problem is that they are not using any centralized
database system to manage different courses. The main aim of this report is to design a
cauterized database system for Dominican College to access the data and information according
to requirement.

LO1 Understand data models and database technologies.
1.1 Critically compares different data models and schemas.
Data model: The data model is used to define the data structure of the database. The data models
are used to introduce the abstraction in the database management system. It is used to provide a
way to connect the data and it is used to provide a way to store the data in the system. There are
different types if the data model in the database management system. The description of the
different data models are providing in this session. The data modeling is a process which is used
to create a document of complex software system design. Different data model are given below:
 Entity relationship model.
 Relational model.
 Object-oriented model.
 Network model.
 Hierarchical database model.
Entity relationship model:
Entity relationship model is a type of the data model in the database management system. the
Entity-relationship model is known as ER model. There is two main component in this model
and they are an entity and their relationship. The ER model is fully dependent on the entities and
relations. The set of the entity and relationship is created by the entity relationship model.
Entity: The entity relationship model contains different real-world entities. The entity contains
some properties and the properties are known as attributes. The attributes of the entity can be
referred as a set of values. For example, the database contains different entities like students,
teacher, course, class etc. and the student entity contains some attributes like student name,
student roll number, address, contact number, father name and mother name etc.
Relationship: the relationship is a way to connect different entities together. There are different
types of the relationship and they are following:
 One to one relationship
 One to many relationships

 Many to one relationship
 Many to many relationships
Advantages of the Entity-relationship model:
 Entity relationship model is a very simple model.
 Provide good virtual representation:
 It can be converted easily into the relational model
 Provide effective tools for the communication.
Disadvantages of the Entity-relationship model:
 It has limited specification and constraints.
 Limited representation of the relationship.
 Hard to represent the data manipulation in entity-relationship model.
 Information is hidden or lost in the entity-relationship model.
Relational model:
The relation model is a part of the database management system which is known as RM. The
relation model is used to manage different data for the database management system. it can be
referred as an approach to manage different data. All data is stored in the tables (relation). The
row and column are contain by each table. There is two main part of the relationship and they are
header and body. In the relation, the list of the column is known as harder and the set of the data
is known as the body.
Advantages of the Relational model:
 It can use the structured query language.
 Powerful database management system.
 Database design is easy
 Implementation and maintenance are also easy.
Disadvantages of the Relational model:
 Extraction of meaning from data is slow.

 Consumption of the physical storage.
 Reduce the performance.
 Isolated database.
 Cost.
Object-oriented model:
The Object-oriented model is known as OOM. The Object-oriented model is used to construct
the object through the set of the object. It is model of the database management system, which is
used to represent the information in the form of the object. The Object-oriented model uses the
object-oriented programming. It is different from the relation database, which is known as table
oriented and it is object-oriented. This model contains relationship and data in a structure, which
is called object.
Advantages of the object-oriented model:
 Maintain the database is easy.
 Easily modify the existing codes.
 Provide a modular structure.
Disadvantages of the object-oriented model:
 Increase the complexity.
 It is used to solve the requirement and it is not a technology.
 It is not widely developed.
Network model
The network model is the type of the model, which is used to provide the effective way to
represent the objects and this relationship. The Network model provides the feature, which is
known as a schema. The network model allows more connection between different nodes. It
provides the ability to handle the many to many relations. Means it allow a single record to have
more the one node. It allows one to one, one to many, many to many relationships between the
entities. The advantages and disadvantages of the network model are given below:
Advantages of the Network model:

 The network model is simple.
 The Network model provides the ability to manage the relationship.
 Data integrity.
 Provide the data independence.
Disadvantages of the network model:
 The Network model increases the complexity of the system.
 Lack of the structural independence.
Hierarchical database model:
The Hierarchical database model is used to organize different data into a tree structure. Every
node contains a single parent, which is known as the root node. The tree structure contains three
layers the last layer contain the child node and the second layer contain the parent node and the
first node contain the root node. This model is used to describe the relationship. The Hierarchical
database model was the first model of the database management system. In this model, the data
is represented by using the relationship between the parent and child. Every parent node can
contain more than one child. The column is used to represent the individual attributes in this
model. The row is used to represent the individual record in this model.
Advantages of the hierarchical model:
 Data is represented by using the relationship between the parent and child.
 Data independence.
 Increase the performance of the database.
 Simple creation and manipulation.
 Increase security.
Disadvantages of the hierarchical model
 The implementation of this model is complex.
 The management of this model is difficult.
 Implementation limitations.
 Application programming is complex.

 Many to many relationships are not supported.
 The physical representation of the database is required.
Database schema:
The database schema is known as structure, which is used to represent the logical view of the
whole database. it is used to organize the data in a proper way and it is also used to associate the
relationship. the Database schema describes how the database is divided into the table. The
Database schema can be referred as the logical and visual architecture of the database in the
database management system.
Database schema provides the way to define the entity and the relationship among them. The
database schema contains the details of the database.
There are two types of the Database schema and they are following:
 Physical Database Schema
 Logical Database schema
Physical Database schema: it is used to provide the way to store the data in secondary storage
in the term of indices and files. In other work, the physical database schema is used to describe
how the data is to be stored or represented in the secondary storage by database management
system.
Logical Database schema: the Logical Database schema is used to define the views, integrity
constraints and tables. The schema defines the logical constraints, which is useful to apply to the
database. Terms of the data management technology can be described by the logical schema.

1.2 Critically discusses the benefits and limitations of different database technologies.
There are different types of the database, which is used to store different data and information.
This section describing the different database and some benefits and limitation of each database
is given below:
Flat file database:
The flat file database is the type of the database, which is used to store the data and information
in the form of the files. It means it stores the information in plain text file. A single record is held
by each line on the text file.
Advantages of the flat file database:
 The flat file database is good for the small database.
 Maintenance of flat file database is easy.
 Implementation of the database is easy.
 Less software and hardware is required.
Disadvantages of the flat file database:
 Due to repeated data, the file size can be large.
 Data searching and data accessing process is slow.
 Data redundancy.
 Data inconsistency.
 Reduce the security.
 Data sharing process consume the time.
Cloud:
The cloud computing is a type of the service which is used to store different data and
information. The main advantage of this service is that user can access the data and information
from different place according to the requirement.
Advantages of the cloud computing:

 The user can access the data and information from different place according to the
requirement.
 Usability.
 Reduce the cost.
 Data backup by using this user can recover the data and disaster time
Disadvantages of the cloud computing:
 High internet connection is required.
 Technical issues.
 Security issues.
Relational database:
The relational database can be referred as a collection of the dataset, which is organized in the
table by row and column. The relational database is a database, which is used to create the
relationship between different database tables.
Advantages of the relational database:
 The user can access the data easily from the database.
 Simplicity.
 Data normalization.
 Data flexibility.
Disadvantages of the relational database:
 The complexity of the data.
 Hard implementation.
 Hard to represent the complex data.
Distributed database:
The distributed database is the type of the database that involves more than data files, which is
located at different sites on a computer network. A different user can access the data from the

database without interfering with one another. In another word, the data and information are
stored on different computers, located on same physical location.
Advantages of the distributed database:
 Availability.
 Reliability.
 Improve the performance.
Disadvantages of the distributed database:
 Cost
 Complexity
 Reduce the security.
 Experience is required.

1.3 Analyze different approaches to database design
Two main approaches are used to design the database for the Dominican College and the
approaches are top-down approach and down to top approach.
Top-down approach:
The top-down approach starts with the requirement of the database. it is useful to analysis
requirement of the database and what data should be kept in the database. It is the first approach
to design the database. The top-down approach provides the high-level view of all components.
Figure 1 Top-down approach
(Sherzad, 2017)
Down to top approach:
This approach is known and bottom-up approach. This is the second approach to design the
database. this approach is used to migrate the database from one physical database to another
physical database.

Figure 2 bottom-up approach
(Owlgen, 2017)
Conceptual ER diagrams
Figure 3 conceptual ER diagrams of Dominican College

Logical diagram:
Figure 4 Logical diagram of the Dominican college

Reference:
 Sherzad, 2017. Top Down and Bottom Up Design Model. [online] Slideshare. Available at:
https://www.slideshare.net/absherzad/top-down-and-bottom-up-design-model [Accessed 22
Mar. 2018].
 Owlgen, 2017. What is bottom -up approach to database design? When it is used? -
Owlgen.com. [online] Owlgen. Available at: https://www.owlgen.com/question/what-is-
bottom-up-approach-to-database-design-when-it-is-used [Accessed 22 Mar. 2018].