Database Application Case Study: Butler Financing Company Analysis

This assignment presents a case study on designing a database application for Butler Financing, a mortgage brokerage company. The study utilizes MS Access as a database design tool to address the company's need for managing borrower and lender data, currently stored in spreadsheets. The main body of the assignment includes a justification for using a database, specifically MS Access, highlighting its ease of use, security features, and ability to import and export data. An entity-relationship (ER) diagram is provided to illustrate the database structure, including entities for lenders, borrowers, property appraisals, and mortgages, along with their respective attributes and primary/foreign keys. The assignment also touches on database tables and queries, although these sections are not fully developed in the provided text. Finally, it addresses IT privacy and security issues associated with database applications, particularly within the context of MS Access, emphasizing the importance of password protection and awareness of potential vulnerabilities like unauthorized access and SQL injection. The conclusion summarizes the benefits of database implementation and the importance of addressing security concerns. References to relevant books and journals are included.

DATABASE APPLICATION
- CASE STUDY

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
Justification of the database.........................................................................................................1
Entity Relationship diagram........................................................................................................2
Database tables.............................................................................................................................3
Queries.........................................................................................................................................3
IT privacy and security................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................4
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................5

INTRODUCTION
Database application can ex explained as a computer program whose primary purpose is
to retrieve and enter data into a computerised database. There various kinds of database
applications such as accounting system, reservation system etc. This assignment is based on a
case study of Butler Financing company that runs a mortgage brokerage business. They maintain
a list of data spreadsheet which consist of the data of their borrowers and lenders. They need a
database to store and maintain their spreadsheet data. In this assignment MS Access will be used
as a database design tool for solving their problem and storing data. Based on the information
provided Entity relationship diagram will also be drawn.
MAIN BODY
Justification of the database
Microsoft Access is a database management system created by Microsoft. It is a
combination of software development tool and Microsoft database design engine. It normally
stores data in its own format which can imported or linked directly to any kind of application as
well as with other databases as well. It is one of the simplest and secure database that can be used
to store data. It is just one part of Microsoft's data management product strategy. Like other
normal relational databases it allows its users to like all kind of related information easily with
each other with its severally powerful connectivity features (Souza and et.al., 2016). It can easily
import or export that database files either to other applications or database or from other
databases. One of the best feature of MS access is that it can easily understand wide variety of
database file structures. In fact it also supports data that has been exported from spreadsheets
database files etc. It is one of the most commonly used database that can be used by the
organisations or students to store their data in any format which is required by them.
It is used for variety of purposes but basically it is used for creating tables, forms,
queries, reports etc. and connect then together with macros. The main concept behind MS access
was to make it easy for the users to access the data from any kind of source. It can also import
data from sources like Outlook, Excel, dBase, ASCII, FoxPro, oracle, SQL Server etc. Data that
is used for linking can be used for querying, viewing, reporting, editing etc. It also helps in
changing the present existing data into latest data and not only this it can also perform various
kinds of joints that are used to join data sets that are mostly stored in different platforms
(Kristensen, Teoh and Baker, 2015). It also provides a feature through which queries can be
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viewed both graphically and SQL statements. All the field types in in MS Access can be deleted,
updated, integrated etc. So, lastly it can be said that MS Access is one of the most basic type of
database that can be used for this case study as it can be implemented easily as well as can store
data easily and in variety of forms.
Entity Relationship diagram
Entity relationship diagram is considered to be one of the important step for developing a
structure which allows the developer in creating UML diagram which supports the understanding
about the functionalities of the system. This is mainly developed in order to manage the database
of the system and it also shows the relationship of the entity which set stored within the database
(Javed and Lin, 2018). The entity is termed as the object or the component of the data which
has various different features linked with it. Also these features associated with the entity are the
attributes which represents the fields within the tables. ER Diagram allows in describing the
logical structure of the database in which all the data gets arranged according to specified field.
Moreover, the entity diagram described below is based on the database of the butler
financing company which deals with the mortgage brokerage business which allows the lenders
and burrowers to maintain the mortgage. So in order to retrieve and store the data within the
spreadsheets effectively, four different entities are created. These different entities helps in
storing the specific and necessary data within the separate table. So according to the above
presented ER diagram, the four separate entities are created namely lender, burrower, Property
appraisal and mortgage. These different entities helps in storing the particular information which
will be easily accessible by the company. First entity named as lender consists of various
attributes such as lender number, Lender name and address. Among all the attributes within the
Lender one primary key is stored which cannot be null and it will be unique so this allows the
company in storing the accurate data of the lender. Also another entity named as borrower which
consists of again some entities such as Borrower number, Borrower name and Borrower address.
Next entity is Mortgage which consists of various attributes such as mortgage_number,
lender_number, borrower_number, appraise_number, mortgage_amount where
mortgage_number is the primary key and lender_number and borrower_number are the foreign
key. Last entity is property_appraiser which consist of attributes such as appraiser_number and
appraiser_name where appraiser_number is the foreign key.
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Illustration 1: Entity relationship diagram
Database tables
Queries
IT privacy and security
While using databases there are various kinds of IT security and privacy issues that arises
and if such issues are not addressed properly then users can face difficulties and issues related to
database security and privacy (Zhang, 2018). there is no doubt that database tools help in storing
and accessing the data in an efficient manner but however there are various kinds of issues that
can arise and create IT related privacy and security issues. Similarly there are many such kinds
of issues with MS Access as well such as: Any one can easily access MS Access database and as
well as the data stored in it. In other words it gives excessive permission to other users as well
who can easily use this database. Another issue related to permissions is that it gives anyone by
default permission to manipulate the data or store any kind of junk values within the data which
also increases chances of malware injection or SQL injection within the data. So, it becomes one
of the main reason for security and privacy for the data that is stored within it. Another issue
with it is that by default it saves database files with no username and password which increases
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security and privacy threats associated with the data. One of the biggest threat associated with
Microsoft Access database is that it can easily be hacked which increases the threat of
manipulation of data (Zhang, and et.al., 2017). In other words if security issues regarding
Microsoft Access is seen than its security level is quite low which increases security and privacy
issues of the database data that is stored within it. So, it is important for the users to protect their
database file with password by setting a strong password on their database files or on other files
that has been imported within the database tool.
CONCLUSION
From the above assignment it has been summarised that there were various reasons due to
which need of database implementation arise in different organisations. It helps in in efficiently
storing, acquiring etc. the data, so that it can be used by the users and makes it easy for them to
maintain their data. It also reduces the chances of human errors while inserting or storing the
data. It has also been analysed that the entity relationship diagram builds a base for creating
database and its tables. It has also been analysed that there are various kinds of security and
privacy issues related to database which should be addressed by the users in order to make their
data secure.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Javed, M. and Lin, Y., 2018. Iterative Process for Generating ER Diagram from Unrestricted
Requirements. In ENASE (pp. 192-204).
Kristensen, M.S., Teoh, W.H.L. and Baker, P.A., 2015. Percutaneous emergency airway access;
prevention, preparation, technique and training.
Souza, I.D., and et.al., 2016. Selective molecularly imprinted polymer combined with restricted
access material for in-tube SPME/UHPLC-MS/MS of parabens in breast milk
samples. Analytica chimica acta. 932. pp.49-59.
Zhang, D., 2018, October. Big data security and privacy protection. In 8th International
Conference on Management and Computer Science (ICMCS 2018). Atlantis Press.
Zhang, K., and et.al., 2017. Security and privacy in smart city applications: Challenges and
solutions. IEEE Communications Magazine. 55(1). pp.122-129.