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The Advantages Of Database Management Systems

Good Essays

Assignment 1

Matthew Fisher
May 15, 2016

Part 1: Database Concepts
Topic 1: The Advantages of Database Management Systems
A database system would offer the innkeepers several advantages over the flat file system, including enforced data integrity, minimized effort to adapt data into usable information, and abstraction.
Storing data in a flat file system, as the innkeepers do, and accessing the data directly pose problems of data integrity. Anomalous data could easily arise if the innkeepers update a record in one file, but do not take care to update related records in other files. Where data are kept in multiple, separate files, but have a conceptual relationship to each other, a file system is of limited use compared to a database management system (DBMS). A DBMS ensures that relationships between entities are enforced.
By way of example, a GUEST entity might have a GUEST_ID attribute that appears in multiple locations (e.g. a RESERVATIONS entity). In the file system model, the innkeepers may choose to store addresses of guests in both GUEST and RESERVATION files in order to quickly access address information while booking reservations. If the address is updated in one place, but not the other, this results in a data anomaly, where the address attributes for a guest do not agree. A well-designed database using a DBMS could circumvent this issue by storing no guest information in the RESERVATION table other than GUEST_ID. With this relationship, guests’ addresses can still

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