2023 Now that you have learned the concepts of database models and you have practiced creating entity relationship diagrams | Assignment Collections

• Now that you have learned the concepts of database models and you have practiced creating entity relationship diagrams, let us focus on the implementation of that design into a Database Management System (DBMS).
  • Based on the example of the business function / operation that you described within the Weeks 1-3 discussions, describe the queries that you would need to create in order to support the business function / operation in question.
  • Based on the database model described in the Week 2 and Week 3 discussions for your business function / operation, determine the major / minor issues that might arise when creating these queries.
• Week 2 Discussion for myself

Categories of Amazon operations range from; beauty, electronic, health, sport, and office products to food, books, and outdoor living products. Amazon has the widest product selection and serves the global market- both individuals and businesses directly or indirectly through third parties thanks to the internet. 

These entries relate in multiple ways in that each category serves the global market and each product comes in a wide variety hence giving customers choices. This in turn attracts more customers since they have a higher purchasing power giving Amazon a competitive advantage over their competitors.

Every entry differs in terms of price and quality and from their categories, electronics, and general merchandises have the highest sales where they contribute most of the Amazon’s total revenue. By having the earth’s biggest selection of products, the entities are diverse, affordable, and unique. 

In this case, Amazon was selected because of the security guarantee it offers its products like right orders will be delivered on time and in the best condition to their locations of preference. Amazon is also easily accessible, easy to use, and convenient for every customer.

Set rules ensure that individual credit card information is protected from fraudsters and customers from any corner of the globe can order and receive their products of choice effortlessly. The rules therefore protect the market and the business by ensuring that both are benefiting at the same time. 

In a case where the rules only favor one party, the business-customer relationship will be greatly affected. This is because one party (either the business or customer) will be benefitting at the expense of the other. This means that business failure or low customer retention will result.

Week 3 discussion for myself

As noted by Kaur and Rani (2013), the Enterprise Relationship (ER) Model is a database design that shows the relationships that exist between the entities. Examples of entities in the business operation or function such as employees and projects and items as were the case in my ER diagram. The ER model is important because it helps the user to identify the relationship that exists between entities (Yang and Cao, 2016). For instance, in an organization set up, a relational model can be used to understand the workers assigned a given task. 

Similarly, a well-designed ER model helps the use end user in a business organization dealing in production regulate the output with regard to the available stock. Furthermore, the ER model minimizes costs that could be incurred in trainings as it is easy for the end user to understand (Yang and Cao, 2016). This is because the existing relationship between entities is clearly indicated and as such decision-making for senior management who are also the end users of the database is made in short time.  Moreover, the other use of the database could be concern with data entry, editing data and data mining Thalheim (2013). For data entry employees, the understanding of the relationship between entities is irrelevant but the data fed into the database must be within the set parameters drawn out o the relationship observed by the database developer. Therefore, development of database is reliant on the ER model because the components of the data base entries are drawn from the model. The amount of information meant for the end user is developed from the identified relationship that exists between the entities.

In reference to a study by Thalheim (2013), the database developer is able to transform the ER model into relationship tables that form part business operations of functions databases. Additionally, with an understanding of the existing relationships from the ER model, the database developer is then able to convey the design in manner that is understandable (Kaur and Rani, 2013). In particular, in the absence of the ER model, the database developer might consider entities’ relationships that do not exist thereby confusing the end user who might be having basic understanding of database design.

            Moreover, it is on the basis of the ER model that database developer implements the data model on a given database management software such as Oracle and Microsoft windows access (Byrne & Qureshi ,2013).  Therefore, if the ER model has not been developed then the developer experiences difficulties in implementation and choice of the software. Moreover, a database developer is able to determine the parameters for the functionality of the relationship that between entities (Kavanagh & Johnson, 2017). For instance, in case of an organization that keeps data relating to employees and motor vehicle usage in the firm, the developer is able to restrict the type of data entry if say one vehicle is assigned to one employ. In this case the entry that goes against the parameter of the entity then it  will be denied by the databases management software. 

           One major challenge that faced in creating the ER diagram for the chosen database was inability to clearly reveal the relationship that existed among some entities bases on the dependence of the attributes of the entities. Moreover, because some of my entities were non-human determining the direct relationship between them proved to be a challenge. Therefore, I ended up having relationship that might not be easily understood by the end users. Furthermore, some of the entities identified in the in the ER diagram were hesitant disclose the existing relationships based on assumptions rather than facts which might eventually pose problems for data users.

Moreover, because of the many objects that needed to be included in the ER diagram, I ended up with a very large ER diagram making navigation through by users a challenge and time consuming. The minor challenge that I encountered in creating the ER diagram was the existence of many-to –many relationships that existed between the entities but I was able to overcome this challenge through the introduction of hidden entities that then allowed for direct relationship.

In development of a database, it is important to create an Entity relationship model as this allows the end user to clearly understand the relationship upon implementation of the model. An ER model forms the basis upon which relational tables are developed by the developer as well as tailoring the content to   meet the data needs of the different users. In addition, the decision for implementation of the data model on the given database management software is based on the ER diagram. Challenges faced in creating my ER diagram were such as inadequate information and inability to clearly identify the existing relationships between entities.