20-10-2016, 03:01 PM
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Abstract
Imagining a business without knowing its targeted customers, employees who are working for the company and the financial involvement of the organization is just impossible. Database is a collection of information that is perfectly organized so that it can be accessed effectively whenever it’s needed. In this extremely competitive environment it is important for the organizations to be aware of its targeted market, employees or vendors its working with and financial tie ups it’s getting involved in. Database acts as a perfect tool which keeps all this information in sync and helps the company to work smoothly. The present study will entail discussions of database design, implementation and its proper management. The study will discuss the core technologies used in the database design process, the chronological enforcements made for the implementation and its effective management that helps in the overall growth and development.
1. Introduction
Collection of data in a structured form is known as database. It is used to retrieve meaningful information from a set of related data. Database design process is a process of making a structured data model of the acquired database. This database model addresses all the needs of logical design, physical design, storage parameters which are used by data definition language to model the design of a database (Gorman, 2014).
2. Database
A database can be addressed as the conglomeration of information which is organized so that it can be accessed easily, managed and up graded. Generally database is created by organizations for the purpose of storing huge amounts of data. For storing this humongous amount of data the databases make use of tables. The data once stored in a database can be accessed by making use of queries. These queries can be pertaining to anything ranging from updating of data, deletion of data or retrieving specific data from the database.
3. Metadata
Metadata can be understood as data about data. This term is used to address the information pertaining to data itself for instance origin, formatting, size and other distinct characteristics of the data item. In the database field, the metadata is important for comprehending and interpreting the data warehouse contents.
4. Database architecture
A design of database is dependent on its architecture. Usually the database architecture is classified as follows:
1. Two- tier architecture: this is a client server based architecture where in a user interface program runs on the client and an interface program called as open database connectivity (ODBC) allows this client to connect to the database management system.
6. Database design process
A database design process is carried out in the following steps:
1. Purpose of database design:in this step an analysis is carried out on the purpose of creating a database, what data is to be stored how the design shall help an organization, etc?
2. Database design requirement analysis: this step is accompanied with the analysis of problem specification, determining the type of data, what is to be stored, analysis of current working environment, information flow, analysis of user groups, analysis of the functional requirements of the database, analysis of audience, target market, etc.
3. Conceptual database design: in this phase a conceptual and transactional design of the database is done using database design models. This helps in analyzing the various entities and their dependencies with each other. Conceptual design can be done using E-R diagrams and transactional can be easily understood by sequence or UML diagrams.
4. Selecting a DBMS: in this phase based on the analysis of working environment a best framework for implementing the conceptual design of the database is selected. It deals with selecting the type of the DBMS like relational model, object oriented model, network model, etc. than it is preceded by selection of user programming interfaces and query languages.
5. Creating logical database model: In this phase data definition languages are used to create tables and columns of the database. All the relationships of conceptual design are established. Primary key, foreign key constraints are all established.
6. Check for errors: analyze the database according to business rules and check for functional or transactional errors. Remove errors and update the design.
7. Normalize the database: Normalization of the database tables is done to ensure the database has no redundant data (Teorey, Lightstone et al., 2009).
7. Database recovery and disaster planning
Once a database design is done it is the job of a database administrator to ensure that database is not easily accessible by unauthorized users. Thus various data security mechanisms are established like granting of user access privileges, permission for read only, etc.
It is also necessary to have database recovery procedure in case of any database failure due to accidental events, system crash or any cyber-attack.
Database recovery is carried in two phases: in the first phase the restore phase-a copy of the data file is retrieved from any backup store and in the second phase recover phase- changes are reapplied to the selected file to bring the database back to the desired state. The recovery levels can be as follows:
a. Recovering database to the past state
b. Recovering the database to a valid state
c. Recovering database to consistent state.
Thus in restore phase database is retrieved from backup prepared and stored on memory devices and make it available to the current database management server and in the recovery phase, the changes of the file restored are applied in database redo logs to perform database restoration(Phillips, 2011).
8. Implementation of Database Design
Database design has proven its efficiency by simplifying the business environment, real time transactions and business performances. The following section examines the use of database management system and the database design process.
Considering the scenario for the Hotel management system the hotel industry is has become very aggressive over the years. One is required to exceptional client centered service for the people that are visiting the hotel. If a hotel does not boast of cheerful clients then it can be considered that it is not doing any business. There also the requirement for running an operation that is productive wherein the expenses are kept at minimum or else it would lead to falling of the benefits along with less resources remaining to be deployed into developing the business. One also needs to guarantee that the regular flows of the visitors are maintained in the hotel along with ensuring that the regular customers of the hotel keep continuing their visit to the hotel.
The need for the project is to automate and streamline the process of hotel management so as to improve the experience of the consumer, making it user friendly and overall improving the performance by providing a solution that is reliable for the process of hotel management.
Requirements
By making use of the automated hotel management system the manager of the hotel must be able to efficiently and rapidly respond to the consumer’s requests for reservation. The manager should also be able to effectively use the system along with finding about the availability of room, generate bills, etc.
The functionality that the system would be possessing is as follows:
• Making Reservations
• Searching for rooms
• Easy payment
• Generate bills
• Maintain guest list by Adding, and Updating guests
• Manage details of the rooms by Adding, Updating and Deleting
• Managing the staff of the hotel using Add, Delete, View, and Update
• Setting the rates
• Managing the inventory Delete, Add, Update
• Taking backup
• Notifications for email
Advantages of the system:
It can be expected that the system would be able to do
• Enhance sales
• Remove the inefficiencies
• Enhance the communications with the guests
• Enhance the services of the consumers
• Streamline the process
• Enhance the process of decision making
By making the use of this system the organization would be able to garner good profits.
Limitations
The system that has been built makes use of technology that is integrated. It would be posing a challenge for the user thus it is recommended that training must be provIDed for aduration of 3 to 6 months in order to make the user comfortable in being able to use the system.
The system shall be completely operational in nearly 6 months.