MIS605 Systems Analysis and Design: Storage System Comparison Report

This report, prepared for MIS605 Systems Analysis and Design, provides a detailed comparison between file systems and databases for data storage within an organizational context, likely a university setting. The report begins by defining and explaining file systems, highlighting their structure, advantages such as ease of access and understanding, and disadvantages including data access and mapping issues, redundancy, and inconsistencies. The report then transitions to databases, defining them as organized collections of data and exploring the role of Database Management Systems (DBMS). Advantages of databases are examined, including reduced redundancy, avoidance of inconsistency, and reduced programming effort, along with enforcing extensive security. The report analyzes the business rules provided in the assignment brief. The report explores the benefits and drawbacks of each storage method, ultimately aiming to determine the most appropriate system for managing organizational files, considering factors like data integrity, efficiency, and scalability. The document references various academic sources to support its analysis and conclusions.

Running head: MIS605 SYSTEMS ANALYSIS AND DESIGN
MIS605 SYSTEMS ANALYSIS AND DESIGN
Name of student
Name of university
Author’s note:

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MIS605 SYSTEMS ANALYSIS AND DESIGN
Table of Contents
Answer of task 1.............................................................................................................2
Answer of task 2.............................................................................................................3
Answer of task 3.............................................................................................................4
Answer of task 4.............................................................................................................5
Answer of task 5.............................................................................................................5
File system.....................................................................................................................6
Advantages.................................................................................................................7
Disadvantages............................................................................................................8
Database.........................................................................................................................9
Advantages...............................................................................................................10
Disadvantages..........................................................................................................12
Answer of task 6...........................................................................................................13
References....................................................................................................................15

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Answer of task 1

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MIS605 SYSTEMS ANALYSIS AND DESIGN
Answer of task 2

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Answer of task 3

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Answer of task 4
Answer of task 5
For determining the most appropriate storage system for the files of the organisation,
the comparison among the file system and database is required to be done. After the analysis
of the file system and database, the most appropriate storage system could be comprehended.

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File system
In any computer, the file system, is considered to be the method by which the files
have been named as well as where the files have been placed originally for the retrieval as
well as the storage (Ortega, Genero & Piattini, 2017). Deprived of any proper file system, the
stored information would not be isolated into the single file and will be significantly difficult
in identifying as well as retrieving. As there is significant increase in the data capacities, the
accessibility as well as the organisation of the individual files are growing to be increasingly
significant in the data storage. The digital file system as well as the file have been named for
as well as modelled afterwards the paper based filing systems with the help of the similar
logic based methodology of the storing as well as the retrieval of the documents (Ou, Shu &
Lu, 2016). The file system could significantly differ among the operating systems, like the
macOS, Microsoft Windows and the Linux founded system. Some of the file system have
been designed for the particular applications. Several kinds of the system involves the
distributed file systems, the specific intention file systems as well as the disk based file
systems. The conventional paper filing is being significantly replaced or even aided by the
file storage in the computer databases (Bhat et al., 2017). There are various advantages as
well as the disadvantages of the convention filing. Even though the paper file are present at
the fingertips and could be easily accessible, the file have the tendency of taking up
significantly large amount of the spaces as well as waste huge amount of paper. The
determining whether any convention filing system would be significantly right for the
university could be considered to be troublesome work. before the use of the computer was
being done, the manual file system had been used for maintaining the files as well as the
records. The storage as well as the processing of the data was being done with the help of the
conventional file system and it grows to be significantly easy method finding the information.
In the conventional file system, each of the files are significantly independent of any other

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file and the data in the various files could easily be integrated only by the writing of any
individual program for each of the applications (Chen et al., 2017).
Advantages
The main advantages of the file system are:
Easy of accessing: The conventional file organisation could be discovered to be
significantly easy of accessing. The file have been physically placed in the central location. If
the individuals in the university cannot find any information that is required immediately, the
individual could spend significantly huge amount of time through each of the files for
discovering the required information. The ability of seeing, then touching as well as reading
the file in any situation would provide significantly huge benefits for thinking about how to
innovate the various aspects of the university (Zhan et al., 2018). The university could easily
manage their files of the various faculties, the teachers, the students and any of the addition
people who are engaged in the university.
Ease of understanding: The convention filing systems are significantly easy in
understanding. The arrangement of the file could be done properly in the various manners,
that includes alphabetically, by considering the skill sets or the topic, even numerically, by
the date by the location or in the order of the importance. Even though the individuals in the
university does not understand properly the working methods of filing system, they could
easily deduce the working of the system and pay the significant attention to the defining
factors. It would help the university to properly manage their files and the various resources
that are required for functioning properly daily (Amani et al., 2016). Even though there are
various advantages of using the conventional file system, there are some disadvantages due to
which the file system is being eliminated.

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Disadvantages
Data access and mapping: Even though the grouping and the storing of the
information is done in the various files, there is no presence of any kind of mapping among
the two files, and therefore the two dependent files have not been properly linked. Even
though the student files in the university as well as the student report files are primarily
associated, these are completely two dissimilar files and these are not associated by any
manner. Therefore, if there is any requirement of displaying the student details along with the
report, the university cannot just directly pick the information from the two files (Bornholt et
al., 2016).
Data redundancy: There are presently no proper methodology for validating the
complete insertion of the duplicate data in the file system. any user could easily enter any
kind of data. The file system does not have the ability of validating the type of the data that is
being entered nor it does the validation for the previous existence of similar kind of data in
the similar file. The duplicate data within the system has not been appreciated as it could be
considered as the significant waste of the time of the individuals who are tasked with the task
of entering the data in the system (Chajed et al., 2017).
Data dependence: within the files, the data are mainly stored in the particular format,
such as the tab or semicolon or even colon. If format of any of files has been changed, then
that particular program for the processing of the file is required to be completely changed.
But there would be significant programs that are dependent on that particular file. The
individuals are required to understand in significant advance of all programs that are utilising
this particular file and then make the appropriate changes to the complete systems. The
missing of changes in any one of the places would lead to the failure of the complete
application (Kumar, Manapragada & Suresh, 2018).

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Data inconsistency: Consider the student report files and the student from the
university records and they have the address of the students in both the files and there has
been placed the request for making the changes for any one specific address of the student.
The student file is only been searched by the program for address and it has been updated
correctly. There is similar another program that helps with the printing of the report of the
student and then mails it to address that has been mentioned in the previous file. It leads to
the situation where there is a mismatch in the data that has been stored of each of the student
(Kakoulli & Herodotou, 2017).
Data isolation: The university stores all the information of the various activities of the
students in the various files that are kept in the different location. The proper individuals are
tasked with the maintenance of the files and then generate the reports that are required by the
higher authority for determining the present condition of the students and the working of the
university. Now in any situation when any consolidated report is required of all the
departments, it would not be possible for the university to provide all the details from the
various departments.
Database
The data could be described as nothing but the facts as well as the statistics that are
stored or even free flowing over any network, commonly the raw as well as unprocessed. The
information is effectively generated from huge amount of data with the help of proper
processing, and then turning into some significant for using (Stonebraker et al., 2018). The
database has been described as the collection of the connected data that has been organised in
the proper manner that the data could easily be accessed, managed as well as updated. The
database could be described as the software based or even hardware based with the one
specific intention of storing the data of the organisation. The Database Management System

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or the DBMS could be considered as the software that permits the creating, the defining, the
manipulation of the database permitting the users with the storing, processing as well as the
analysing the data with significant ease (Pavlo, 2018). The DBMS offers the users with the
efficient interface or the tool for performing the several operations such as the creation of the
database, the storage of the data in the database, the update of the data in the database, the
creation of the tables in database and then executing various tasks in the database.
Advantages
Reduction of the redundancy: The most crucial difficulty that was faced in the earlier
file system was that several application utilised their personal specific kinds of data.
Therefore, some of the data items has been observed to be significantly common to various
application. When the similar kind of data was being used for the various intentions, it led to
the increase in the redundancy in the data that was stored in the files (Raikhlin & Klassen,
2019). This particular redundancy leads to the increased storage as well as the storage costs.
The database system would help with the elimination of the data redundancy as all the
application shares the similar pool of the data. The important information like the customer
name would primarily appear just once in any database.
Avoidance of the inconsistency: As the similar kind of information could be
effectively present at the multiple files in the file systems, the data requires to be constantly
updated at all files whenever any of the changes occurs in the data. For example, the changed
student address might be easily reflected in all the files of the personal information but not
within the marks file (Kuznetsov, 2019). With the implementation of the centralised database
in the university, the majority of the duplication could be easily avoided and the
inconsistency in the information stored in the database could also be easily avoided.

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Reduction of the programming effort: Any new application program frequently needs
the complete new set of the file definitions. Although any existing file might comprise of
some of the required data, this application frequently needs the number of the other data
items. Because of this particular aspect, any programmer was required to properly recode the
complete definitions of the required data items from any of the prevailing files along with the
definitions of the overall new items stored in the database (Islam et al., 2017). Therefore, in
the file based systems, it was observed that there was significantly high interdependence
among the various data and the programs. The database offers the effective separation among
the data and the programs for allowing the independence of the programs of any kind of the
details of the data definition. By offering the access of the pool of the shared data as well as
with the supporting of the powerful languages for the data manipulation, the database systems
help with the elimination of the significantly high amount of the initial as well as the
maintenance programming.
Enforcing the extensive security: Not all the users would be provided with the access
of the data in the conventional file system. As an example, the faculties of the university
needs only the information of the students and the timetable that depending on which the
classes are required to be conducted. The teachers of the university does not need the access
to the payroll database where the payroll information has been stored for all the teachers and
the other staffs of the university (Mariotti et al., 2018). As in any file systems, the application
programs are required to be added to the system in the ad-hoc manner, it has been discovered
that the implementation of the proper security mechanisms is extensively difficult. With the
central control over complete database in the university, the administrator of the database
could efficiently define the main access paths for the accessing of the data that has been
stored within the database and then the authorisation checks could be easily done whenever in
any situation any of the sensitive data is being accessed.