📚 Seth MB

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Databases: Overview

Last updated May 26, 2023 Edit

# Data vs Information

# Data

# Information

Because of this, it would make more sense to describe a database as an “informationbase”.

Knowledge is power.

# What is a database?

# Why are databases used?


# Legalities

Responsibility for the safety of information relies partially on the organisation to set and enforce policies, but the individual can be liable if they go against their organisation’s policies.

If someone has information stored about you, then they are legally required to give it all to you upon request within a reasonable amount of time. Some organisations are exempt from this, such as the police and various security services. Information may be withheld if the usecase of the requester is suspected to be malicious, however this becomes more complex as anyone you have data on still has their rights.

Orphaned data is information that has been disconnected from linked data points. So if you have a product from a supplier and you delete the supplier from your database, then the product has no supplier. This means that the product would be orphaned.

# Worksheet

# Farm

A databse may be used on a farm to keep track of the status of various crops, equipment and balances. This data would be useful to help the farm analyse where their money comes from by identifying the most profitable crops - and then linking this to the equipment used for those crops. Later this may lead to the farm making different decisions based on how they want to operate, for instance they may not want to grow certain crops or use certain equipment if they have identified any potential issues with it. Automatic management of different stock levels (fertilisers etc) could also be enabled through the use of a database combined with automation.

# Website

A website may wish to track visitors to the site and store this information in a database. If, for example, the website was providing a media sharing service, then this analytical data could be used to find out what media is most popular in different regions. This could help the website target their advertising to these regions, and ensure that any local languages are supported. Additionally, it may be possible for the website to decide where to focus development efforts when they see that 70% of their traffic comes from users on mobile devices. This means it would be a good idea for them to put resources into improving their website experience on mobile form factors.

# Restaurant

If a restaurant serves 60 different dishes, there will likely be dishes that are more popular than others. If every time somebody orders something it is recorded in a database, then it would be possible for the restaurant to ensure that they always have the correct ingredients avaliable to provide customers with their favourite dinner dishes on Thursdays. Additionally, it would allow the restaurant to review the performance of different dishes and remove less popular ones from their menu. Another datapoint that the restaurant could get from collecting this information is populatirty based on time and day. They could look at when the most orders are coming in and ensure that they always have enough staff on shift on a Saturday morning whilst also making sure that on a Monday morning they have a much more minimal staff, optimising both costs and customer experience.

# The Law

  1. Describe the nature of content and purpose
  2. Assess the necessity and compliance measures
  3. Identify and evaluate potential risks to data subjects
  4. Identify any additional actions that could mitigate those risks

# Database Management Systems

Databases