Fundamentals of Database Quiz

Fundamentals of Database

• The course is titled "Fundamentals of Database" and was prepared by Joey Arellano
• The instructor began with a prayer for wisdom, understanding, and righteousness for the students and the success of the learning experience.

What is Data?

• Data refers to raw facts, figures, and details collected from various sources.

Examples of Data

• Types of data include: Textual data, Numerical data, Audio data, Visual data, Meta data.

What is Information?

• Information is data that has been processed, organized, structured, interpreted and presented in a context that gives it meaning and relevance.

Characteristics of Information

• Processed Data: Derived from raw data
• Meaningful: Understandable and provides meaning
• Contextual: Allows comparisons, trends, patterns, and the reasons behind them
• Relevance: Provides a basis for actions and decisions

What is a Database?

• A database is any collection of related data in a format allowing easy access (digital).
• It represents a persistent and logically coherent collection of inherently meaningful data, relevant to parts of the real world.

Database Examples

• Examples include systems for education, healthcare, literature, telecommunications, homeowners' associations, scientific research, weather, legal cases, online learning, supply chains, music streaming, customer support, government services, videos, geography, human resources, libraries, and retail/e-commerce.

Important Terms

• Data: Raw facts with little meaning until organized. The smallest piece of data is a single character.
• Field: A character or group of characters (alphabetic or numeric) holding a specific meaning (e.g., phone number, date, name).
• Record: A logically connected set of fields describing a person, place, or thing.
• File: A collection of related records.
• Tables: The fundamental components of a database, consisting of rows (records) and columns (fields).

Overview of DBMS

• A Database Management System (DBMS) is software managing databases.
• It provides an interface allowing interaction with data and ensures its integrity, security, and consistency.
• It stores data in a way making retrieval, manipulation, and the generation of information easier.

Characteristics of Modern DBMS

• Real-world entity: DBMS designs reflect real-world entities (e.g., student as an entity with attributes like age, in a school database)
• Relation-based tables: Entities and relationships are organized into tables, making data retrieval easier
• Isolation of data and application: A DBMS is separate from the data itself, meaning data is passive and independent from the application processes

Database Features

• Less redundancy: Follows normalization rules, splitting relations to reduce redundancy.
• Consistency: Maintains a consistent state of data throughout transactions, a state that isn't guaranteed in simple file processing systems.
• Query Language: Equipped with query language which enables efficient data retrieval and manipulation with various filtering options.

ACID Properties

• ACID: Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, Durability. Applied to transactions ensuring a healthy state during multi-transactions and resilience to failure.

Multiuser and Concurrent Access

• Supports multiple users accessing and manipulating data concurrently.
• Includes restrictions to manage concurrent access to prevent conflicts without user awareness.

Multiple Views

• Provides multiple views for different users, tailoring the database to different user needs and departments (e.g., sales vs. production departments).

Security

• Includes methods for imposing constraints to data entry and retrieval, enabling various security features for different users.

What Does A DBMS Do?

• Allows concurrency for multiple transactions.
• Provides security protocols.
• Maintains data integrity (accuracy, consistency, reliability).
• Provides backup and recovery.
• Controls redundancy to avoid duplications.
• Provides data independence.
• Includes non-procedural query languages.
• Performs automatic query optimization.

Who Interacts with a DBMS?

• Systems analysts
• Database designers
• Database administrators
• Application developers
• Users

3 Major Involvement in DBMS

• Administrators
• End users
• Designers

Administrators Duties

• Maintaining the DBMS and database
• Responsible for administering usage by authorized users
• Managing user access, applying security limitations
• Managing DBMS resources (licensing, applications).
• Handling hardware maintenance

Designer's duties

• Designing parts of the database.
• Performing requirement analysis
• Setting up database creation and structure
• Identifying and designing database entities, relationships, constraints and views

End Users Responsibilities

• Making use of the database
• Working with database systems, accessing data, manipulating, using logs and market rates
• Utilizing advanced functions as business analysts

Database System 3-Tier Architecture

• Database Tier (Back-End): Contains only the database and its query languages along with database constraints
• Application Tier (Middle Tier): The application server and program that access the database. It's a mediator between the user and the database tiers, presenting an abstracted database view to the user.
• User Tier (Front-End): Where the end-user accesses the application. Users don't see the internal database structure

Five Major Parts of a Database System

• Hardware: The computer that runs the system.
• Software: Operating system, DBMS and its utilities
• People: System administrators, database administrators, programmers, end users
• Procedures: Instructions and guidelines for database design and utilization
• Data: Store of facts, including metadata.

Test your knowledge on the fundamental concepts of databases. This quiz covers definitions of data, information, and the characteristics that differentiate them. Explore various types of data and understand the importance of databases in organizing information.