PART A

Integrated database systems require the design of a logical and physical structure in order for
databases to accommodate the information needs of the users in an organization for a defined set of
applications. Some goals of efficient database designs are as below.

 Satisfy the information content requirements of the specified users and applications.
 Provide a natural and easy to understand structuring of the information.
 Support processing requirements and any performance objectives such as 'response time,
processing time, storage space among others.

However, a requirements collection and analysis is carried out to determine what data is essential in
the system. The information gathered in the requirements analysis step is used to develop a higher-
level description of the data.

Since large volumes of data are handled in these systems, a systems collection and analysis is done
so as to decide on how to manage the requirements for a database system with multiple users which
describes the database system major user views.

There three approaches used to monitor this are;

 Centralized approach.
 View integration approach.
 Combination of both approaches.

Centralized approach.

Requirements for different user views are collected into a single list of requirements. A logical data
model is created representing all user views during the database design stage. A data model
representing single user view or subset of all user views is referred to as a local data model.

View Integration approach.

In this approach, requirements for each user view remain as a separate list. Data models
representing each user view are created and then merged during the database design stage. Each
user view has its own data model.

Combination of both approaches.

This approach utilizes the concepts of both the centralized approach and the view integration
approach.

Single user view models are merged to form global data models which represent all user views for
the database.

PART B
A data model is a collection of conceptual tools for describing data, data relationships, data
semantics, and consistency constraints. An optimal data model ensures that the structure of the
system designed supports the enterprise’s mission statement and objectives thus the need for a
conceptual design of a database.
The goal of conceptual database design is a complete understanding of the database structure,
semantics, inter-relationships and constraints.

A bad data model can lead to poor database design, therefore in order to ensure that one gets a
good design an optimal data model should be formulated.

Below are some of the factors that can be followed in order to come to come up with an optimal
data model.

 Diagrammatic Representation: The model should have a diagrammatic notation for

displaying the conceptual schema.
 Formality: A conceptual schema expressed in the data model must represent a formal
specification of the data.
 Shareability: the model should not be specific to any particular application or technology and
thereby usable many.
 Expressible: The data model should be expressive to distinguish different types of data,
relationships and constraints.
 Non-redundancy: the model should exclude any extraneous info in particular therefore there
should be one time representation of information.
 Integrity: the model should ensure consistency with the way an enterprise uses and
manages information.
 Extensibility: the model should have the ability to evolve and support new requirements
with minimal effect to existing users.

PART C
The underlying the structure of a database is known as a data model.

A data model can also be defined as a collection of conceptual tools for describing data, data
relationships, data semantics, and consistency constraints. A data model provides a way to describe
the design of a database at the physical, logical, and view levels.

Data modeling is the process of creating data models for an information system by applying formal
techniques. This process involves creation of a visual representation of either the whole of a system
or part of it to communicate connections between data points and structures.

The main purposes of data modeling include;

 Providing a firm ground for understanding of the meaning or semantics of data.

 Facilitate communication about the information requirements.

The data models can be classified into four different categories:

Relational Model. The relational model uses a collection of tables to represent both data and the
relationships among those data each table has multiple columns, and each column has a unique
name, tables are also known as relations. The relational model is an example of a record-based
model record-based models are so named because the database is structured in fixed-format
records of several types. Each table contains records of a particular type that define a fixed number
of fields, or attributes. The columns of the table correspond to the attributes of the record type.

Entity-Relationship Model. The entity-relationship data model uses a collection of basic objects,
called entities, and relationships among these objects. An entity is an object in the real world that is
distinguishable from other objects.

Object-Based Data Model. The object-oriented data model can be seen as extending the E-R model
with notions of encapsulation, methods (functions), and object identity. The object-relational data
model combines features of the object-oriented data model and relational data model.

Some Data modelling models allow specification of data where individual items of the same type can
have different set of attributes.

Its through data modelling that data can easily be organized for different end users since most of
them have different views and needs for data.