In: Accounting
What are the two main approaches (from a systems management/control perspective), to data management? Your answer should include a brief definition of each and the main differences in the approaches and the major advantages of the data base approach to data management over the file-oriented approach to data processing.)
The two main approaches (from a systems management/control perspective), to data management are:
1. Data Base approach and
2. File Oriented approach.
What is Database Approach (DBMS) : A Database Management System (DBMS) is a system software that allows users to efficiently define, create, maintain and share databases. Defining a database involves specifying the data types, structures and constraints of the data to be stored in the database. Creating a database involves storing the data on some storage medium that is controlled by DBMS. Maintaining a database involves updating the database whenever required to evolve and reflect changes in the miniworld and also generating reports for each change. Sharing a database involves allowing multiple users to access the database
What is File Oriented Approach: A File Management system is a DBMS that allows acces to single files or tables at a time. In a File System, data is directly stored in set of files. It contains flat files that have no relation to other files (when only one table is stored in single file, then this file is known as flat file).
Advantage of DBMS over file system:There are several advantages of Database management system over file system:
No redundant data: Redundancy removed by data normalization. No data duplication saves storage and improves access time.
Data Consistency and Integrity: As we discussed earlier the root cause of data inconsistency is data redundancy, since data normalization takes care of the data redundancy, data inconsistency also been taken care of as part of it
Data Security: It is easier to apply access constraints in database systems so that only authorized user is able to access the data. Each user has a different set of access thus data is secured from the issues such as identity theft, data leaks and misuse of data.
Privacy: Limited access means privacy of data.
Easy access to data: Database systems manages data in such a way so that the data is easily accessible with fast response times.
Easy recovery: Since database systems keeps the backup of data, it is easier to do a full recovery of data in case of a failure.
Flexible: Database systems are more flexible than file processing systems.