Question: List and describe each of the components in the data hierarchy.

Answer:

Question: Define and explain the significance of entities, attributes, and key fields.

Answer: Entity: a person, place, thing, or event about which information must be kept.

Attribute: a piece of information describing a particular entity.

Key field: a field in a record that uniquely identifies instances of that record so that it can be retrieved, updated, or sorted.

Question: List and describe the problems of the traditional file environment.

Answer:

Question: Define a database and a database management system.

Answer: Database: a group of related files.

Database management system: special software to create and maintain a database and enable individual business applications to extract the data they need without having to create separate files or data definitions in their computer programs.

Question: Name and briefly describe the capabilities of a DBMS.

Answer:

Question: Define a relational DBMS and explain how it organizes data.

Answer: Relation DBMS: a type of logical database model that treats data as if they were stored in two-dimensional tables. It can relate data stored in one table to data in another as long as the two tables share a common data element.

Question: List and describe the three operations of a relational DBMS.

Answer:

Question: Explain why non-relational databases are useful.

Answer:

Question: Define and describe normalization and referential integrity and explain how they contribute to a well-designed relational database.

Answer: Normalization: the process of creating small stable data structures from complex groups of data when designing a relational database

• minimizes redundant data

• Referential integrity: rules to ensure that relationships between coupled database tables remain consistent

• Question: Define and describe an entity-relationship diagram and explain its role in database design.

• Answer: