Chapter 6

Data Management

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Need for Data Management
• Content needs to be organized in order to be able to
retrieve it in an efficient manner
• Useful information must be delivered to the right person
at the right time in the right format. It must be accurate
and reliable.
• Almost all the data that we provide or access is stored in
databases

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File Organization Terms and Concepts

• Database: Group of related files

• File: Group of records of same type
• Record: Group of related fields
• Field: Group of characters as text or
numbers
• Byte: Group of 8 bits that makes up a
character
• Bit: 0 and 1

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Traditional File Processing

Application Users
Data Files programs

Financial Bursary Queries/Reports

Info programs

Student Admissions Queries/Reports

Personal programs
Info

Course- Transcript Queries/Reports

Grades programs
Info 4
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Problems with the Traditional File Environment (1 of 2)

• Files maintained separately by different departments

• Data redundancy
• The presence of duplicate data in multiple data files so that the
same data are stored in more than one place or location

• Data inconsistency
• Errors can arise during data entry.
• Data updated in one location may not be updated in the other
location.

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Problems with the Traditional File Environment (2 of 2)
• Program-data dependence
• Changes made to the program may require changes being made to the
restructuring of data. Similarly, changes made to data may require changes
in program code.
• Lack of flexibility
• Not capable of generating reports that were not previously pre-defined and
pre-programmed.
• Poor security
• Individual departments responsible for security of their system
• Lack of data sharing
• Silos of data make it extremely difficult to access data across applications.
Hence, it cannot respond to information requirements in a timely fashion

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Database Management Systems (1 of 2)
• Database
• A collection of data organized to serve
many applications efficiently by centralizing
the data and controlling redundant data.
• Database management system (DBMS)
– Software that allows for the creation of a
database.
– Interfaces between applications and data
files

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Database Management Systems (2 of 2)
• Solves problems of traditional file environment
• Reduced redundancy
• Program data independence
• Flexibility
• Shared data
• Better security
• User authentication using user names and passwords
• Access rights based on roles and responsibilities of users

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Human Resources Database with Multiple Views

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Relational DBMS (1 of 3)
• Popular relational DBMS today:
• MS Access (for PCs), Oracle,
MySQL, MS SQL Server
• Represents data as two-
dimensional tables or relations
• Each table contains data on
entity and attributes
• Entity: Person, place, thing on
which we store information
• Attribute: Each characteristic, or
quality, describing entity

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Relational DBMS (2 of 3)
• Table: grid of columns and
rows
• Records (rows): Collection of
attributes for each entity
• Fields (columns): Represents
attribute for entity
• When a user enters data
into a form, the data goes
into tables

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Relational DBMS (3 of 3)
• Primary key: Field used to
uniquely identify each
record
• Foreign key: Key field used
in second table as look-up
field to identify records from
original table
• Relationships: Used to link
tables to one another via
the primary and foreign keys
• Enables retrieval of data
across several tables

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 Capabilities of Database Management Systems
• Data definition
• Data dictionary
• Data manipulation language
• Querying
• Structured Query Language
(SQL)
• Report generation

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Example of an SQL Query, and Access Query

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MS Access Query wizard

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The Challenge of Big Data
• Big data
• Massive sets of unstructured, semi-structured and structured data from
transactions, web traffic, social media, sensors, and so on
• Characterized by:
• Large volume, wide variety, high velocity
• Can reveal more patterns, relationships and anomalies than smaller
data sets
• Volumes too great for typical DBMS
• Petabytes, exabytes of data
• Requires new tools and technologies to manage and analyze
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Business Intelligence Infrastructure (1 of 4)
• Array of tools for obtaining information from separate systems and
from big data
• Data warehouse
• Data marts
• Hadoop
• In-memory computing
• Analytical tools

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Business Intelligence Infrastructure (2 of 4)
• Data warehouse
– Stores current and historical structured data from many core operational
transaction systems
– Consolidates and standardizes information for use across enterprise, but data
cannot be altered
– Provides analysis and reporting tools
– Response times can be slow for very large volumes of data
• Data marts
– Subset of data warehouse
– Typically focus on single subject or line of business
– Lower costs, faster response times

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Business Intelligence Infrastructure (3 of 4)
• Hadoop
• Handles structured, semi-structured and unstructured data
• Enables distributed parallel processing of big data across inexpensive
computers
• Capable of handling larger volumes than data warehouses
• Processing distributed across a network of inexpensive servers
• Used by Expedia to analyze transaction data, user interaction data on the
website, and marketing and advertising expenditure logs to monitor the
success of their marketing campaigns.

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Business Intelligence Infrastructure (4 of 4)
• In-memory computing
• Use of distributed RAM to store big data across several computers in a
network
• Uses computers main memory (RAM) for data storage to avoid delays in
retrieving data from disk storage
• Can reduce hours/days of processing to seconds

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Analytical Tools: Relationships, Patterns, Trends (1 of 5)

• Tools for consolidating, analyzing, and providing access to vast

amounts of data to help users make better business decisions
• Multidimensional data analysis (OLAP)
• Data mining
• Text mining
• Web mining

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Analytical tools: Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) (2 of 5)
• Supports multidimensional data analysis
• Viewing data using multiple dimensions
• Each aspect of information (product, pricing,
cost, region, time period) is a different
dimension
• Example: Compare the Actual Sales for Nuts
and Bolts across the East and West regions.
• OLAP enables rapid, online answers to ad
hoc queries
• MS Excel is well suited for
multidimensional analysis
• Use of Pivot Tables to view information in
different ways

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Pivot Table Reports

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 Analytical Tools: Data Mining (3 of 5)
• OLAP
• Summarizes data along various Number of Credit Card holders
dimensions 2015 (in 2016 (in 2019 (in 2020 (in
• Provides results to specific questions Region State thousands) thousands) ~~~~~~~~ thousands) thousands)

• What are the number of credit card East

West
New York
California
~~~~~~
~~~~~~
~~~~~~
~~~~~~
~~~~~~
~~~~~~
45
123
56
167
holders, by region for the years 2019 East Massachussetts ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~ 76 65
and 2020? South Georgia ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~ 23 78

• Data mining South

West
Texas
Oregon
~~~~~~
~~~~~~
~~~~~~
~~~~~~
~~~~~~
~~~~~~
87
56
95
83
• Finds hidden patterns, relationships in South Georgia ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~ 68 82
datasets
• Infers rules to predict future behavior
• What are the characteristics of credit
card holders and which bank
customers are likely to apply for a
credit card in the next six months?
• Example: customer buying patterns

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Analytical Tools: Text Mining (4 of 5)
• It is estimated that 80% of all enterprise data consist of
unstructured and semi-structured data.
• Extracts information from textual documents in large semi-
structured and unstructured data sets (blog posts, customer
sentiments expressed on social media and online forums, emails,
survey responses etc.)
• Finds hidden patterns and trends in data
• Sentiment analysis software
• Uncovers tone and emotion in text

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Analytical Tools: Web Mining (5 of 5)
• Discovery and analysis of useful patterns and information from semi-structured
and unstructured data on the web
• Example: Google Trends and Twitter Trends show the popularity of searches and topics over
time
• Can be used by businesses to monitor product trends and location of prospective customers.

• Web content mining

• Extracts useful information from web pages
• Used by Google to index web pages for its search engine listings
• Web structure mining
• Extracts information regarding the structure of a website
• Uses quantity and quality of inbound and outbound links to determine the quality of a website
• Web usage mining (web analytics)
• Collection and analysis of data to understand and optimize web usage
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 Static web pages
• Static web pages present the
same data to all users; fixed,
unchanging data unless changed
by the web master
• Web page retrieved from web
server.
• No database involved

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Databases and the Web
• Many companies use the web to make some internal databases available to customers or
partners
• Browser connects to the database via company servers
• Changes made in the database will be reflected automatically on the web pages
• Allow users to search for and find information on a web database, using a web interface and
a search mechanism
• Web pages are generated on the fly and display different information to different users
based on their search criteria.
• Examples:
o Shopping sites
o Youtube
o Google Search
o Social media sites
o Content Management sites

Linking internal databases to the web 28

Establishing an Information Policy
• Firm’s rules, procedures, roles for sharing, managing, standardizing
data
• Data administration
• Establishes policies and procedures to manage data
• Data governance
• Deals with policies and processes for managing availability, usability, integrity,
and security of data, especially regarding government regulations
• Database administration
• Creating and maintaining database

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Ensuring Data Quality
• Before a new database is in place, a firm must:
• Identify and correct faulty data
• Establish better routines for editing data once database in operation
• Data quality audit
• Survey of the accuracy and level of completeness of the data in an
information system
• Data cleansing (data scrubbing)
• Activities to identify and correct errors and inconsistencies in data

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