Sessioin 5: Assignment One

Question:

Think of the small database we used in our lab exercise - Products and Suppliers. Briefly describe how this database observes any two of the four design principles outlined above.


Answer:
The relational database is the primary method for organizing and maintaining data today in information systems. It organizes data in two-dimensional tables with rows and columns called relations.
A database management system (DBMS) is a specific type of software for creating, storing, organizing, and accessing data from a database.

The small database we used in our lab exercise - Products and Suppliers.
This database observes the two design principles are:

• Provides the database management system (e.g. ACCESS) with the information it requires to join the information in the tables together as needed:

We selected the fields to be included in the report. From the Product table, we could choose Product Category, Product Name, Selling Price, Quantity on Hand and Reorder Level. While Company Name - this is the name of the supplier for that product can only be chosen from the Supplier table, we can merge the information from both Tables (i.e. Product and Supplier) into one database.

• Accommodates your data processing and reporting needs:

We grouped the report according to Product Category and sorted the data in each product category by Product Name in our lab exercise, but actually we can group the report so as to accommodate the data processing and reporting needs. Also we can choose the layout and page orientation for the report as we need.