Myra-Ann B.

Oligario

BSA 2-7D

Merging Transaction and Analytical Processing

Next topic is the merging, or the combining, of transaction and analytical processing which is one of the systems design issues for managing online data. However, we must know that the two are quite different. For example, complex analytical queries online require locking of data resources for extended periods of execution time. And, classmates, if you can still remember from our last semester, locking happens when two users do queries at the same time resulting to one of the users getting blocked from accessing data. Performing this will only diminish the performance of transaction processing, thus affecting performance for customer. So, many organizations replicate transaction to a second server so that analytical processing will no longer slow down the process. Operational Systems systems that are used to interact with customers and run business in real time. It must process large volumes of data. Sales order processing and reservation systems are some examples. Information Systems Designed to support decision making based on stable point-in-time or historical data. On the other hand, informational systems have periodic batch updates.

Data Warehouse
Data warehouses contain a wide variety of data that present a coherent picture of business conditions at a single point in time. Development of a data warehouse includes development of systems to extract data from operating systems plus installation of a warehouse database system that provides managers flexible access to the data. Subject-oriented. A data warehouse is organized around the key subjects of the enterprise, such as customers, patients, students, or products. It means that data is linked together and is organized by relationships. Integrated. Data are defined using consistent naming conventions, format, encoding structures, and related characteristics collected from many operational systems within the organization and from external data sources. The data is integrated, means that a data warehouse uses data that is organizational wide instead of from just one department.

Time variant. Data have a time dimension so that they may be used as historical records pertaining to business. It means that any data that is changed in the data warehouse can be tracked. Usually all changes to data are stamped with a time-date and with a before and after value, so that the changes throughout a period of time can be shown.

Non-volatile. Data are loaded and refreshed from operational systems, but the data cant be updated by end users. It means that the data is never deleted or erased. This is a great way to protect the most crucial data because this data is retained, users can continue to use it in a later analysis.

Steps in making a data warehouse using two-tier architecture: 1. Extract data from various source system files and databases. Large organizations have dozens or hundreds of files and databases. 2. Transform, integrate, and load the data. 3. Data warehouse is a read-only environment for decision support that contains both detailed and summary data.
4. Users access via query languages and analytical tools.

Since the two-level architecture works well in small to medium sized organization that has a limited number of hardware and software platforms and a relatively homogenous computing environment, problem arises for large organizations that uses heterogeneous computing environment. And these led to the expanded, more sophisticated, three-level architecture. Its components are: a. Operational systems and data. b. An enterprise data warehouse. It is a centralized, integrated data warehouse and a control point and single source of all data made available to end users c. Data marts. A data warehouse that is limited in scope based upon aggregation and selection.

Web Site Content Management

is a software system that provides website authoring, collaboration, and administration tools designed to allow users with little knowledge of web programming languages or markup languages to create and manage website content with relative ease. A robust WCMS provides the foundation for collaboration, offering users the ability to manage documents and output for multiple author editing and participation.

It allows contents from multiple sources to be stored separately from its formatting to ease web site management.