I12EMDL4985 Management Information Systems Section A Part one 1.

Management Information System is mainly dependent upon Answer: b) Information 2. The most important attribute of information quality that a manager requires is Answer: b) Relevance 3. Human Resource Information Systems are designed to Answer: d) Development of employees to their full potential 4. Operational Accounting System include Answer: c) Development of financial budgets and projected financial statements 5. EIS stands for Answer: a) Executive Information System 6. Intranet provide a rich set of tools for those people Answer: b) Who are members of the same company or Organization 7. Which one is not the future of wireless technology? Answer: c) RFID 8. OLTP stands for Answer: a) Online Transactional Processing 9. Which one of the following is not considered as future of m commerce Answer: b) Localization 10. Which of the following is not the level of decision making Answer: d)Strategic decision making

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I12EMDL4985 Part Two 1. What are the Strategic Information Systems? Answer: Introduced in 1982 by Dr. Charles Wiseman and primarily used within the field of information systems, strategic information systems are created in response to business initiatives to provide a competitive advantage.

2. Write down the various business model of internet Answer:

Brokerage Brokers are market-makers: they bring buyers and sellers together and facilitate transactions. Advertising The web advertising model is an extension of the traditional media broadcast model. The broadcaster, in this case, a web site, provides content (usually, but not necessarily, for free) and services (like email, IM, blogs) mixed with advertising messages in the form of banner ads. Infomediary Independently collected data about producers and their products are useful to consumers when considering a purchase. Some firms function as infomediaries (information intermediaries) assisting buyers and/or sellers understand a given market. Merchant Wholesalers and retailers of goods and services. Sales may be made based on list prices or through auction. Manufacturer (Direct) The manufacturer or direct model, it is predicated on the power of the web to allow a manufacturer (i.e., a company that creates a product or service) to reach buyers directly and thereby compress the distribution channel. Affiliate In contrast to the generalized portal, which seeks to drive a high volume of traffic to one site, the affiliate model, provides purchase opportunities wherever people may be surfing. It does this by offering financial incentives (in the form of a percentage of revenue) to affiliated partner sites. Community The viability of the community model is based on user loyalty. Users have a high investment in both time and emotion. Revenue can be based on the sale of ancillary products and services or voluntary contributions; or revenue may be tied to contextual advertising and subscriptions for premium services. Subscription Users are charged a periodic daily, monthly or annual fee to subscribe to a service.

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Management Information System

I12EMDL4985 Utility The utility or on-demand model is based on metering usage, or a pay as you go approach. If you want more details about each model they are explained in detail on Rappas site. As you can imagine you can combine any of these models and vary slightly to make new models. But this is a nice list to get started with. 3. What is Network Bandwidth? Answer: Network Bandwidth refers to the volume of data being transmitted across a network at any given point in time. Network Bandwidth can decrease if devices that enable networked communications fail. Network Bandwidth can also be constrained by both hardware and software limitations. Optimizing the available Network Bandwidth is a primary responsibility of network administrators. 4. Differentiate between OLTP and OLPP Answer: Main Differences between OLTP and OLPP are:1. [ User and System Orientation OLTP: customer-oriented, used for data analysis and querying by clerks, clients and IT professionals. OLAP: market-oriented, used for data analysis by knowledge workers( managers, executives, analysis). 2. Data Contents OLTP: manages current data, very detail-oriented. OLAP: manages large amounts of historical data, provides facilities for summarization and aggregation, stores information at different levels of granularity to support decision making process. 3. Database Design OLTP: adopts an entity relationship(ER) model and an application-oriented database design. OLAP: adopts star, snowflake or fact constellation model and a subject-oriented database design. 4. View OLTP: focuses on the current data within an enterprise or department. OLAP: spans multiple versions of a database schema due to the evolutionary process of an organization; integrates information from many organizational locations and data stores ]

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Management Information System

I12EMDL4985 Section B Case let 1 1. Discuss the client strategy for the success of store Answer: Most businesses fall short of achieving their growth objectives for revenue and profitability. In fact, studies report success rates as low as 20%. Why is growth so elusive? Based on our research and experience*, there are two major reasons:

Inadequate consideration of opportunities within the core business, adjacent to the core business or within new customer sub-segments. An organizational infrastructure that cannot support successful execution.

However, managers can do certain things to improve the chances for success. This article will describe one such thing managers can do, namely build a systematic framework composed of three strategies for growth and three key elements for successful execution. The article will also explain how the three strategies and three key elements increase the probability for success. Achieving growth: Recommendations for increasing the probability of success Strengthen the execution infrastructure by investing in safe bets. Regardless of which growth strategy is selected, a firms infrastructure must be up to a standard that supports successful execution. An on-going commitment to creating such an infrastructure is a safe bet. Achieving this requires (1) eliminating departmental or regional silos, (2) utilizing leading indicators and performance drivers that align with the strategy and (3) growing leaders at all levels managerial and non-managerial. (See Sections 4, 5 and 6.) Initiate a process to identify strategies with a high probability for success. Three customer growth strategies are presented below: (1) Growing the core business, (2) Growing by sub-segmenting customers and (3) Growing adjacent opportunities. It is recommended that the senior leaders begin the process by considering the growth potential within the present core business and/or the opportunities and growth potential associated with creating innovative value propositions for underserved customer groups. As the senior leadership group moves through this process, it will become clear if and when adjacent growth options should be considered. (See Sections 1, 2 and 3.) Customer-Focused Growth Strategies The process of identifying profitable growth opportunities most often begins with the Core Business1, that is, the products, services, customers, channels and geographic areas that generate the largest proportion of revenue and profits. In-depth conversations with the senior leaders on the topic, What is our core business?, is the preferred starting point. An evaluation of the overall performance of the core business follows. This involves measuring and benchmarking profitability, rate of revenue growth and the firms reputation with its most important customers. Pradeep A M Management Information System

I12EMDL4985 When considering these questions, input from external stakeholder groups is very helpful, particularly from loyal and even not-so-loyal customers. The overall process need not take a great deal of time, but can yield significant returns. These include:

A renewed commitment to operational excellence within the core business, Insightful conversations on the growth potential of the core business, or conversely, An urgent need to make significant changes to the core or even a plan for abandoning the present core and exploring more profitable growth options.

The starting point was winning the commitment of key employees at all levels, individuals who were willing to step forward and lead. Processes were created to help refocus on the core business. Key elements included (1) defining three market platforms on which the core business is based Industrial, Fleet and Safety, (2) eliminating products and markets that did not fit on these platforms, (3) adding new products to augment the core and (4) strengthening market coverage with significant investments in the two major channels sales depots and the firms website. 2. A second customer-focused growth strategy is based on the firms existing customers. This strategy involves creating High Impact Value Propositions for new customer sub-segments. Underpinning this strategy is the willingness to view customers through a different set of lenses. A process can be created to assist both managers and specialists at the customer interface gain fresh insights into customer needs and preferences. This is a necessary first step in discovering underserved customer groups and hidden growth opportunities. (Senior leaders who frequently interact with customers can make a significant contribution to this process.) Key elements of this process include (1) sub-segmenting existing customer groups based on newly discovered needs, buying patterns and contribution to profits and/or revenue, (2) creating innovative and high-impact value propositions for the most attractive sub-segments, (3) field-testing the new value propositions and (4) scaling-up based on the results of field tests.3 3. A third customer-focused strategy is to enter businesses that have strong strategic links to the core adjacent businesses1. This is a particularly appealing alternative when the core business is approaching its full potential, operates efficiently and generates surplus cash for reinvestment. It is also an important option when it is clear that the cores future growth potential is weak. Many leaders prefer to start this process by focusing on current customers. A series of meetings with the most innovative customers can be a valuable source of opportunities. Alternative channels, new products or services or even new joint ventures may be suggested as well as entering new geographic markets, serving different customer segments and redesigning the customers value chain. Another alternative is to consider the non-core businesses of the firm. Is there the potential to leverage present positions into attractive growth opportunities?

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I12EMDL4985 In the short term, adjacent growth initiatives that leverage a strong position with existing core customers have a higher probability of success. The alternative of expanding into new geographic markets provides the advantage of building a larger customer base, but often at the cost of a longer payback period and higher risk. Executing growth strategies The three Customer-Focused Growth Strategies described above require a supporting infrastructure to increase the chances of successful implementation. Lack of an adequate infrastructure is the second reason cited for not achieving growth objectives. A supportive infrastructure includes (1) organization capabilities that are valued by customers, (2) a management-performance system and scorecard which focuses on leading indicators and the drivers of growth and (3) strong leadership practices at every level of the organization.

Organization capabilities are processes that are strategic and deliver a high level of value to customers. For example, a firm may have the capability to: Successfully entering new markets, Create excellent new products or services which appeal to customers, or Provide an outstanding level of customer service. Note that the three organization capabilities selected are vital to the success of specific CustomerFocused Growth Strategies. Each of these capabilities is rooted in processes that move across the organization and require the expertise and commitment of various individuals and departments. Its widely accepted that an organizations success is rooted in its competitive-edge, organizational capabilities. Therefore, a major challenge that senior managers face is to clarify, assess and continually strengthen their organizations strategic capabilities. An important aspect of the clarifying and assessing process requires that senior managers step outside their organization and evaluate both their firm and their competitors through the eyes, mind and heart of the customer. The following guidelines will help with such an assessment. The capability should be: 1. Highly visible to key individuals within the customer organization, and acknowledged as providing exceptional value. 2. Difficult for present and potential competitors to replicate. As an example, lets examine the capability to provide an outstanding level of customer service in a manner that would make it difficult for competitors to replicate. In order to provide such a high level of customer service, employees from different departments (not only the Customer Service Department) must be involved in service delivery. Employees throughout the organization should connect quickly and collaborate willingly. Collectively, relevant information and insights about customers and product or service delivery must be shared.

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Management Information System

I12EMDL4985 The high level of cross-departmental collaboration required can prove challenging for some organizations, particularly those with rigid vertical structures. Such structures make it difficult for employees to adapt and respond to special customer service requirements. Note that under these conditions, an employees loyalty often shifts from the firm to their department or profession. Delivering a superior level of customer value requires uninterrupted flow across the organization. Eliminating barriers to flow breaking down departmental silos- is a necessary first step to building an organizations strategic capabilities, regardless of the specific capability. Lets return to the question of how difficult will it be for a competitor to replicate a key organizational capability. It should be very difficult! A number of senior leaders view organization capabilities as the key element of their business strategy. These leaders focus on continually building and leveraging the organizations capabilities to drive new business growth. 6 A second key element of infrastructure necessary for successful execution is the Performance Management system and scorecard. (Note: Performance Management systems are rooted in the widely held belief that what gets measured gets done.) The process starts by answering the question, what should be measured and why? The following guidelines help answer this question.

Scorecards depict key strategic relationships, particularly between the desired performance outcomes such as revenue and profit growth and the drivers of performance (e.g. new market entry, service quality, customer loyalty, employee engagement). Performance of both individuals and departments (or regions) is directly linked to the growth strategy and successful execution. Company scorecards should provide a balanced perspective based on the needs of key stakeholders groups and/or major organizational processes internal operations, value provided to customers and employee development.

The third key ingredient of a supportive infrastructure is Leadership. Who are leaders and what do they do? Leaders are people throughout the organization who influence the attitudes and actions of colleagues. As such, they help colleagues understand the many whys of organizational life. For example:

Why the organization must perform at a high level in the increasingly competitive and global business environment. Why barriers to cross-departmental collaboration are harmful and weaken the organizations ability to adapt. Why, when a colleagues performance appears to fall short, it may be preferable to view this as an opportunity for learning and professional development rather than expulsion from the organization. Why the ultimate success of the organization is rooted in its ability to continually be innovative in delivering value to customers.

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Management Information System

I12EMDL4985 2. Suppose if you are the client maker what would you suggest for the client Answer: Each of these capabilities is rooted in processes that move across the organization and require the expertise and commitment of various individuals and departments. Its widely accepted that an organizations success is rooted in its competitive-edge, organizational capabilities. Therefore, a major challenge that senior managers face is to clarify, assess and continually strengthen their organizations strategic capabilities. An important aspect of the clarifying and assessing process requires that senior managers step outside their organization and evaluate both their firm and their competitors through the eyes, mind and heart of the customer. The following guidelines will help with such an assessment. The capability should be: 1. Highly visible to key individuals within the customer organization, and acknowledged as providing exceptional value. 2. Difficult for present and potential competitors to replicate. As an example, lets examine the capability to provide an outstanding level of customer service in a manner that would make it difficult for competitors to replicate. In order to provide such a high level of customer service, employees from different departments (not only the Customer Service Department) must be involved in service delivery. Employees throughout the organization should connect quickly and collaborate willingly. Collectively, relevant information and insights about customers and product or service delivery must be shared. The high level of cross-departmental collaboration required can prove challenging for some organizations, particularly those with rigid vertical structures. Such structures make it difficult for employees to adapt and respond to special customer service requirements. Note that under these conditions, an employees loyalty often shifts from the firm to their department or profession. Delivering a superior level of customer value requires uninterrupted flow across the organization. Eliminating barriers to flow breaking down departmental silos- is a necessary first step to building an organizations strategic capabilities, regardless of the specific capability. Lets return to the question of how difficult will it be for a competitor to replicate a key organizational capability. It should be very difficult! A number of senior leaders view organization capabilities as the key element of their business strategy. These leaders focus on continually building and leveraging the organizations capabilities to drive new business growth.

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Management Information System

I12EMDL4985 Case let 2 1. Explain the role of data warehousing in the functioning of a call centre Answer: The purpose of the Data Warehouse in the overall Data Warehousing Architecture is to integrate corporate data. It contains the "single version of truth" for the organization that has been carefully constructed from data stored in disparate internal and external operational databases. The amount of data in the Data Warehouse is massive. Data is stored at a very granular level of detail. For example, every "sale" that has ever occurred in the organization is recorded and related to dimensions of interest. This allows data to be sliced and diced, summed and grouped in unimaginable ways.

Typical Data Warehousing Environment

Contrary to popular opinion, the Data Warehouses does not contain all the data in the organization. It's purpose is to provide key business metrics that are needed by the organization for strategic and tactical decision making. Decision makers don't access the Data Warehouse directly. This is done through various front-end Data Warehouse Tools that read data from subject specific Data Marts.

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Management Information System

I12EMDL4985 The Data Warehouse can be either "relational" or "dimensional". This depends on how the business intends to use the information. 2. How the response time in performing PLAP queries can be improved Answer: Use the SAS OLAP Server Monitor in SAS Management Console to display information or close active client (cube viewer) sessions and the queries that are being processed in those sessions. To display sessions, connect to the OLAP server. Current sessions appear in the right pane. For definitions of the displayed fields, select Help Help on SAS OLAP Server Monitor. In the Help contents, select About Sessions. To display queries, first display a session, and then double-click the session to see lists of data queries and metadata queries. Data queries return to the client a result set that consists of requested cube data. Metadata queries return to the client-requested metadata, such as a cube description, rather that cube data. To close sessions or queries, right-click and select Close. Section C 1. Explain the term e commerce. Also explain the history and limitations of e-commerce Answer: Electronic commerce, commonly known as e-commerce, is the buying and selling of product or service over electronic systems such as the Internet and other computer networks. Electronic commerce draws on such technologies as mobile commerce, electronic funds transfer, supply chain management, Internet marketing, online transaction processing, electronic data interchange (EDI), inventory management systems, and automated data collection systems. Modern electronic commerce typically uses the World Wide Web at least at one point in the transaction's life-cycle, although it may encompass a wider range of technologies such as e-mail, mobile devices social media, and telephones as well. Electronic commerce is generally considered to be the sales aspect of e-business. It also consists of the exchange of data to facilitate the financing and payment aspects of business transactions. E-commerce can be divided into:

E-tailing or "virtual storefronts" on Web sites with online catalogs, sometimes gathered into a "virtual mall" The gathering and use of demographic data through Web contacts and social media Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), the business-to-business exchange of data E-mail and fax and their use as media for reaching prospects and established customers (for example, with newsletters) Business-to-business buying and selling

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I12EMDL4985

The security of business transactions

History of E commerce: One of the most popular activities on the Web is shopping. It has much allure in it you can shop at your leisure, anytime, and in your pajamas. Literally anyone can have their pages built to display their specific goods and services. History of ecommerce dates back to the invention of the very old notion of "sell and buy", electricity, cables, computers, modems, and the Internet. Ecommerce became possible in 1991 when the Internet was opened to commercial use. Since that date thousands of businesses have taken up residence at web sites. At first, the term ecommerce meant the process of execution of commercial transactions electronically with the help of the leading technologies such as Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) which gave an opportunity for users to exchange business information and do electronic transactions. The ability to use these technologies appeared in the late 1970s and allowed business companies and organizations to send commercial documentation electronically. Although the Internet began to advance in popularity among the general public in 1994, it took approximately four years to develop the security protocols (for example, HTTP) and DSL which allowed rapid access and a persistent connection to the Internet. In 2000 a great number of business companies in the United States and Western Europe represented their services in the World Wide Web. At this time the meaning of the word ecommerce was changed. People began to define the term ecommerce as the process of purchasing of available goods and services over the Internet using secure connections and electronic payment services. Although the dot-com collapse in 2000 led to unfortunate results and many of ecommerce companies disappeared, the "brick and mortar" retailers recognized the advantages of electronic commerce and began to add such capabilities to their web sites (e.g., after the online grocery store Webvan came to ruin, two supermarket chains, Albertsons and Safeway, began to use ecommerce to enable their customers to buy groceries online). By the end of 2001, the largest form of ecommerce, Business-to-Business (B2B) model, had around $700 billion in transactions.

According to all available data, ecommerce sales continued to grow in the next few years and, by the end of 2007, ecommerce sales accounted for 3.4 percent of total sales. Ecommerce has a great deal of advantages over "brick and mortar" stores and mail order catalogs. Consumers can easily search through a large database of products and services. They can see actual prices, build an order over several days and email it as a "wish list" hoping that someone will pay for

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Management Information System

I12EMDL4985 their selected goods. Customers can compare prices with a click of the mouse and buy the selected product at best prices. Online vendors, in their turn, also get distinct advantages. The web and its search engines provide a way to be found by customers without expensive advertising campaign. Even small online shops can reach global markets. Web technology also allows to track customer preferences and to deliver individuallytailored marketing. History of ecommerce is unthinkable without Amazon and Ebay which were among the first Internet companies to allow electronic transactions. Thanks to their founders we now have a handsome ecommerce sector and enjoy the buying and selling advantages of the Internet. Currently there are 5 largest and most famous worldwide Internet retailers: Amazon, Dell, Staples, Office Depot and Hewlett Packard. According to statistics, the most popular categories of products sold in the World Wide Web are music, books, computers, office supplies and other consumer electronics. Amazon.com, Inc. is one of the most famous ecommerce companies and is located in Seattle, Washington (USA). It was founded in 1994 by Jeff Bezos and was one of the first American ecommerce companies to sell products over the Internet. After the dot-com collapse Amazon lost its position as a successful business model, however, in 2003 the company made its first annual profit which was the first step to the further development. At the outset Amazon.com was considered as an online bookstore, but in time it extended a variety of goods by adding electronics, software, DVDs, video games, music CDs, MP3s, apparel, footwear, health products, etc. The original name of the company was Cadabra.com, but shortly after it become popular in the Internet Bezos decided to rename his business "Amazon" after the world's most voluminous river. In 1999 Jeff Bezos was entitled as the Person of the Year by Time Magazine in recognition of the company's success. Although the company's main headquarters is located in the USA, WA, Amazon has set up separate websites in other economically developed countries such as the United Kingdom, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, and China. The company supports and operates retail web sites for many famous businesses, including Marks & Spencer, Lacoste, the NBA, Bebe Stores, Target, etc. Amazon is one of the first ecommerce businesses to establish an affiliate marketing program, and nowadays the company gets about 40% of its sales from affiliates and third party sellers who list and sell goods on the web site. In 2008 Amazon penetrated into the cinema and is currently sponsoring the film "The Stolen Child" with 20th Century Fox. According to the research conducted in 2008, the domain Amazon.com attracted about 615 million customers every year. The most popular feature of the web site is the review system, i.e. the ability for visitors to submit their reviews and rate any product on a rating scale from one to five stars. Amazon.com is also well-known for its clear and user-friendly advanced search facility which enables visitors to search for keywords in the full text of many books in the database. One more company which has contributed much to the process of ecommerce development is Dell Inc., an American company located in Texas, which stands third in computer sales within the industry behind Hewlett-Packard and Acer.

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Management Information System

I12EMDL4985 Launched in 1994 as a static page, Dell.com has made rapid strides, and by the end of 1997 was the first company to record a million dollars in online sales. The company's unique strategy of selling goods over the World Wide Web with no retail outlets and no middlemen has been admired by a lot of customers and imitated by a great number of ecommerce businesses. The key factor of Dell's success is that Dell.com enables customers to choose and to control, i.e. visitors can browse the site and assemble PCs piece by piece choosing each single component based on their budget and requirements. According to statistics, approximately half of the company's profit comes from the web site. In 2007, Fortune magazine ranked Dell as the 34th-largest company in the Fortune 500 list and 8th on its annual Top 20 list of the most successful and admired companies in the USA in recognition of the company's business model. History of ecommerce is a history of a new, virtual world which is evolving according to the customer advantage. It is a world which we are all building together brick by brick, laying a secure foundation for the future generations. Limitations of E- commere Technological and inherent limitations :- The technological limitations of e-commerce have restricted a large number of people from using this revolutionizing technique. The major disadvantage of ecommerce is the limitation of the Internet, as it still has not touched the lives of every individual. Lack of knowledge restricts large number of people from using the internet and understanding online transactions. Some people refuse to trust the legitimacy of online business and some are not comfortable about disclosing their personal and confidential information online. Authenticity of ecommerce businesses has always remained in question. Not suitable for perishable commodities :- The biggest limitation of e-commerce is that it is not suitable for perishable goods and food items. For purchasing such items people prefer the conventional way of shopping. Along with that, the time period also plays a significant role in delivering goods to the customers. Customers may need to make lot of phone calls and e-mails for getting the products within the desired timeframe. Moreover, it becomes really troublesome to return the product or get refund in case if you are not satisfied with the product. After evaluating the pros and cons of e-commerce, we can clearly state that the benefits of e-commerce are sufficient enough for overpowering the limitations. If apt strategies are followed and technical issues are addressed properly, you can easily build up the customers trust in your system. The present scenario of e-commerce can also be changed for good, so that it can easily adapt to the ever changing needs of the customers as well as of the world

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Management Information System

I12EMDL4985 2. What do you mean by term Database? Explain the various database models in detail Answer: A database is a store of information, kept in a systematic way. A good example is a telephone directory. Directories vary around the world, but each entry (a subscriber) typically has the following information: subscriber's name, address, phone number. In a database, one entry (such the entry for one subscriber in the phone book) is a record. Each of the categories (types) of information is called a field. In the phone directory SubscriberName is a possible name for one field, PhoneNumber is another. Fields are like the questions asked in printed or computer questionnaires: Name? Email address? Date of birth? Each of these in a database would be a field. A database may therefore be displayed as intersecting rows and columns, like a spreadsheet (in fact, Microsoft Excel is popular for keeping simple databases, and the software has a menu titled Data for carrying out database-type operations). By convention, each record occupies one row, and each field one column. Computer databases enable rapid retrieval of information. A typical question that an employee of a business could put to a database might be: Which customers have had outstanding accounts for at least 30 days, totaling at least $100? A computer system makes it easy to ask such queries, and quick to obtain accurate answers. A computer application designed for creating and maintaining databases is called a database manager.

Various Database Models Various techniques are used to model data structure. Most database systems are built around one particular data model, although it is possible for products to offer support for more than one model. For any logical model various physical implementations may be possible, and most products will offer the user some level of control in tuning the physical implementation, since the choices that are made have a significant effect on performance. Flat model

The flat (or table) model consists of a single, two-dimensional array of data elements, where all members of a given column are assumed to be similar values, and all members of a row are assumed to be related to one another. For instance, columns for name and password that might be used as a part of a system security database. Each row would have the specific password associated with an individual user. Columns of the table often have a type associated with them, defining them as character data,

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Management Information System

I12EMDL4985 date or time information, integers, or floating point numbers. This may not strictly qualify as a data model, as defined above. Hierarchical model

In a hierarchical model, data is organized into a tree-like structure, implying a single upward link in each record to describe the nesting, and a sort field to keep the records in a particular order in each samelevel list. Hierarchical structures were widely used in the early mainframe database management systems, such as the Information Management System (IMS) by IBM, and now describe the structure of XML documents. This structure allows one 1:M relationship between two types of data. This structure is very efficient to describe many relationships in the real world; recipes, table of contents, ordering of paragraphs/verses, any nested and sorted information. However, the hierarchical structure is inefficient for certain database operations when a full path (as opposed to upward link and sort field) is not also included for each record. Motherchild relationship: Child may only have one mother but a mother can have multiple children. Mothers and children are tied together by links called "pointers". A mother will have a list of pointers to each of her children. Network model

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Management Information System

I12EMDL4985 The network model (defined by the CODASYL specification) organizes data using two fundamental concepts, called records and sets. Records contain fields (which may be organized hierarchically, as in the programming language COBOL). Sets (not to be confused with mathematical sets) define one-tomany relationships between records: one owner, many members. A record may be an owner in any number of sets, and a member in any number of sets. The network model is a variation on the hierarchical model, to the extent that it is built on the concept of multiple branches (lower-level structures) emanating from one or more nodes (higher-level structures), while the model differs from the hierarchical model in that branches can be connected to multiple nodes. The network model is able to represent redundancy in data more efficiently than in the hierarchical model. The operations of the network model are navigational in style: a program maintains a current position, and navigates from one record to another by following the relationships in which the record participates. Records can also be located by supplying key values. Although it is not an essential feature of the model, network databases generally implement the set relationships by means of pointers that directly address the location of a record on disk. This gives excellent retrieval performance, at the expense of operations such as database loading and reorganization. Most object databases use the navigational concept to provide fast navigation across networks of objects, generally using object identifiers as "smart" pointers to related objects. Objectivity/DB, for instance, implements named 1:1, 1:many, many:1 and many:many named relationships that can cross databases. Many object databases also support SQL, combining the strengths of both models. Relational model The relational model was introduced by E.F. Codd in 1970 as a way to make database management systems more independent of any particular application. It is a mathematical model defined in terms of predicate logic and set theory. The products that are generally referred to as relational databases in fact implement a model that is only an approximation to the mathematical model defined by Codd. Three key terms are used extensively in relational database models: relations, attributes, and domains. A relation is a table with columns and rows. The named columns of the relation are called attributes, and the domain is the set of values the attributes are allowed to take. The basic data structure of the relational model is the table, where information about a particular entity (say, an employee) is represented in rows (also called tuples) and columns. Thus, the "relation" in "relational database" refers to the various tables in the database; a relation is a set of tuples. The columns enumerate the various attributes of the entity (the employee's name, address or phone number, for example), and a row is an actual instance of the entity (a specific employee) that is represented by the relation. As a result, each tuple of the employee table represents various attributes of a single employee.

Pradeep A M

Management Information System

I12EMDL4985 All relations (and, thus, tables) in a relational database have to adhere to some basic rules to qualify as relations. First, the ordering of columns is immaterial in a table. Second, there can't be identical tuples or rows in a table. And third, each tuple will contain a single value for each of its attributes. A relational database contains multiple tables, each similar to the one in the "flat" database model. One of the strengths of the relational model is that, in principle, any value occurring in two different records (belonging to the same table or to different tables), implies a relationship among those two records. Yet, in order to enforce explicit integrity constraints, relationships between records in tables can also be defined explicitly, by identifying or non-identifying parent-child relationships characterized by assigning cardinality (1:1, (0)1:M, M:M). Tables can also have a designated single attribute or a set of attributes that can act as a "key", which can be used to uniquely identify each tuple in the table. A key that can be used to uniquely identify a row in a table is called a primary key. Keys are commonly used to join or combine data from two or more tables. For example, an Employee table may contain a column named Location which contains a value that matches the key of a Location table. Keys are also critical in the creation of indexes, which facilitate fast retrieval of data from large tables. Any column can be a key, or multiple columns can be grouped together into a compound key. It is not necessary to define all the keys in advance; a column can be used as a key even if it was not originally intended to be one. A key that has an external, real-world meaning (such as a person's name, a book's ISBN, or a car's serial number) is sometimes called a "natural" key. If no natural key is suitable (think of the many people named Brown), an arbitrary or surrogate key can be assigned (such as by giving employees ID numbers). In practice, most databases have both generated and natural keys, because generated keys can be used internally to create links between rows that cannot break, while natural keys can be used, less reliably, for searches and for integration with other databases. (For example, records in two independently developed databases could be matched up by social security number, except when the social security numbers are incorrect, missing, or have changed.) Dimensional model The dimensional model is a specialized adaptation of the relational model used to represent data in data warehouses in a way that data can be easily summarized using OLAP queries. In the dimensional model, a database schema consists of a single large table of facts that are described using dimensions and measures. A dimension provides the context of a fact (such as who participated, when and where it happened, and its type) and is used in queries to group related facts together. Dimensions tend to be discrete and are often hierarchical; for example, the location might include the building, state, and country. A measure is a quantity describing the fact, such as revenue. It's important that measures can be meaningfully aggregatedfor example, the revenue from different locations can be added together. In an OLAP query, dimensions are chosen and the facts are grouped and aggregated together to create a summary. The dimensional model is often implemented on top of the relational model using a star schema, consisting of one highly normalized table containing the facts, and surrounding denormalized tables containing each dimension. An alternative physical implementation, called a snowflake schema, normalizes multi-level hierarchies within a dimension into multiple tables.

Pradeep A M

Management Information System

I12EMDL4985 A data warehouse can contain multiple dimensional schemas that share dimension tables, allowing them to be used together. Coming up with a standard set of dimensions is an important part of dimensional modeling. Multivalue model Multivalue databases are 'lumpy' data, in that they can store exactly the same way as Relational Databases, but they also permit a level of depth which the relational model can only approximate using sub-tables. This is nearly identical to the way XML expresses data, where a given field/attribute can have multiple right answers at the same time. Multivalue can be thought of as a compressed form of XML. An example is an invoice, which in either multivalue or relational data could be seen as (A) Invoice Header Table - one entry per invoice, and (B) Invoice Detail Table - one entry per line item. In the multivalue model, we have the option of storing the data as on table, with an embedded table to represent the detail: (A) Invoice Table - one entry per invoice, no other tables needed. The advantage is that the atomicity of the Invoice (conceptual) and the Invoice (data representation) are one-to-one. This also results in fewer reads, less referential integrity issues, and a dramatic decrease in the hardware needed to support a given transaction volume. Objectional database models

In recent years, the object-oriented paradigm has been applied to database technology, creating a new programming model known as object databases. These databases attempt to bring the database world and the application programming world closer together, in particular by ensuring that the database uses the same type system as the application program. This aims to avoid the overhead (sometimes referred to as the impedance mismatch) of converting information between its representation in the database (for example as rows in tables) and its representation in the application program (typically as objects). At the same time, object databases attempt to introduce the key ideas of object programming, such as encapsulation and polymorphism, into the world of databases. A variety of these ways have been tried for storing objects in a database. Some products have approached the problem from the application programming end, by making the objects manipulated by the program persistent. This also typically requires the addition of some kind of query language, since conventional programming languages do not have the ability to find objects based on their information content. Others have attacked the problem from the database end, by defining an object-oriented data

Pradeep A M

Management Information System

I12EMDL4985 model for the database, and defining a database programming language that allows full programming capabilities as well as traditional query facilities. Object databases suffered because of a lack of standardization: although standards were defined by ODMG, they were never implemented well enough to ensure interoperability between products. Nevertheless, object databases have been used successfully in many applications: usually specialized applications such as engineering databases or molecular biology databases rather than mainstream commercial data processing. However, object database ideas were picked up by the relational vendors and influenced extensions made to these products and indeed to the SQL language.

Pradeep A M

Management Information System