Database Management Series...2

Importance of the Databases

Databases are important; why? Traditionally computer applications are divided into commercial and scientific (or engineering) ones. Scientific applications involve more computations, that is, different type of calculations that vary from simple to very complex. Today such applications exist, like in the fields of space, nuclear, medicine that take hours or days of computations on even computers of the modern age. On the other hand, the applications that are termed as commercial or business applications do not involve much computations, rather minor computation but mainly they perform the input/output operations. That is, these applications mainly store the data in the computer storage, then access and present it to the users in different formats (also termed as data processing) for example, banks, shopping, production, utilities billing, customer services and many others. As is clear from the example systems mentioned, the commercial applications exist in the day to day life and are related directly with the lives of common people. In order to manage the commercial applications more efficiently databases are the ultimate choice because efficient management of data is the sole objective of the databases. So such applications are being managed by databases even in a developing country like Pakistan, yet to talk about the developed countries. This way databases are related directly or indirectly almost every person in society.

Databases are not only being used in the commercial applications rather today many of the scientific/engineering application are also using databases less or more. Databases are concerned of effectively latter form of applications which are more Commercial applications. The goal of this course is to present an in-depth introduction to databases, with

an emphasis on how to organize information in the database and to maintain it and retrieve it efficiently, that is, how to design a database and use it effectively.

Databases and Traditional File Processing Systems

Traditional file processing system or simple file processing system refers to the first computer-based approach of handling the commercial or business applications. That is why it is also called a replacement of the manual file system. Before the use computers, the data in the offices or business was maintained in the files (well in that perspective some offices may still be considered in the pre-computer age). Obviously, it was laborious, time consuming, inefficient, especially in case of large organizations. Computers, initially designed for the engineering purposes were though of as blessing, since they helped efficient management but file processing environment simply transformed manual file work to computers. So processing became very fast and efficient, but as file processing systems were used, their problems were also realized and some of them were very severe as discussed later.

It is not necessary that we understand the working of the file processing environment for the understanding of the database and its working. However, a comparison between the characteristics of the two definitely helps to understand the advantages of the databases and their working approach. That is why the characteristics of the traditional file processing system environment have been discussed briefly here.

The diagram presents a typical traditional file processing environment. The main point being highlighted is the program and data interdependence, that is, program and data depend on each other, well they depend too much on each other. As a result any change in one affects the other as well. This is something that makes a change very painful or problematic for the designers or developers of the system. What do we mean by change and why do we need to change the system at all. These things are explained in the following.

The systems (even the file processing systems) are created after a very detailed analysis of the requirements of the organizations. But it is not possible to develop a system that does not need a change afterwards. There could be many reasons, mainly being that the users get the real taste of the system when it is established. That is, users tell the analysts or designers their requirements, the designers design and later develop the system based on those requirements, but when system is developed and presented to the users, it is only then they realize the outcome of the effort. Now it could be slightly and (unfortunately) sometimes very different from what they expected or wanted it to be. So the users ask changes, minor or major. Another reason for the change is the change in the requirements. For example, previously the billing was performed in an organization on the monthly 

basis, now company has decided to bill the customers after every ten days. Since the bills are being generated from the computer (using file processing system), this change has to be incorporated in the system. Yet another example is that, initially bills did not contain the address of the customer, now the company wants the address to be placed on the bill, so here is change. There could be many more examples, and it is so common that we can say that almost all systems need changes, so system development is always an on-going process.

So we need changes in the system, but due to program-data interdependence these changes in the systems were very hard to make. A change in one will affect the other whether related or not. For example, suppose data about the customer bills is stored in the file, and different programs use this file for different purposes, like adding data into the bills file, to compute the bill and to print the bill. Now the company asks to add the customers’ address in the bills, for this we have to change the structure of the bill file and also the program that prints the bill. Well, this was necessary, but the painful thing is that the other programs that are using these bills files but are not concerned with the printing of the bills or the change in the bill will also have to be changed, well; this is needless and causes extra, unnecessary effort.

Another major drawback in the traditional file system environment is the non-sharing of data. It means if different systems of an organization are using some common data then rather than storing it once and sharing it, each system stores data in separate files. This creates the problem of redundancy or wastage of storage and on the other hand the problem on inconsistency. The change in the data in one system sometimes is not reflected in the same data stored in other system. So different systems in organization; store different facts about same thing. This is inconsistency as is shown in figure below.

Previous section highlighted the file processing system environment and major problems found there. The following section presents the benefits of the database systems.