Week 3 Discussion – Planning the DBLC
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The development of a database requires thorough methodology that ensures quality within the solution. Imagine you have been contracted to develop a finance database that will help an organization track monthly expenditures by departments.
- Discuss the various activities that you would have to achieve each phase, using the DBLC.
- Assess possible challenges that may exist within each phase.
- Suggest actions that one can perform in order to overcome these possible challenges.
- Be sure to respond to at least one of your classmates’ posts.
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Caitlyn Thompson
1:25pm Apr 23 at 1:25pm
Hello, class!
The development of a database requires thorough methodology that ensures quality within the solution. Using the DBLC, we can track the organization’s monthly expenditures with a new finance database using the following phases.
Planning:
This stage includes analyzing the current software and collecting documentation of the business plans and goals for the new design. Create a data model that shows the important data relationships and how the data will be organized. Define the scope, budget, and timeline, and create a database requirements document. This includes the description of what data will be generated as well as how it will be generated, along with any additional requirements. These requirements will be gathered through interviews, surveys, and the current system analysis (uCertify, 2).
Some challenges to consider in the planning stage can come from lacking documentation or requirements, which leads to inadequate system design, resulting in rejection/underutilization of system. To overcome this obstacle, it is imperative to take the necessary time to ensure that all requirements are met and documented before proceeding to the design stage.
Designing:
This stage involves creating the structured data design to achieve the goals set in the planning stage. This can be done in three stages – conceptual, logical, and physical design. The designing stage also includes creating prototypes to test the design before implementation. Testing with the prototype will locate and fix errors using either white or black box texting methods, to ensure that the design meets the necessary needs (2).
A challenge in the design stage is, similarly to planning, failing to meet the requirements. This can be especially detrimental without the prototyping phase of the process. Prototyping helps to identify issues and avoid having to redo as much, and refines requirements for feasibility and usability.
Implementing:
During this phase the new design begins working. This can be done with or without a prototype being done and includes implementing security and converting any legacy databases. At this stage the new design takes over and becomes a functional user interface (2).
One challenge to consider in implementation is user rejection; it’s important that the design has been thoroughly tested to maintain security as well as integrity of the design to avoid the system being rejected or unusable.
Maintenance:
Maintenance is the prolonged end stage that lasts until re-design is necessary. This is when the system is routinely tested and managed, and any necessary troubleshooting is completed. While testing is completed throughout the process of the creating the database, it is just as important to continue testing regularly to make sure there are no unexpected issues (Abdullah, 1).
A challenge of the maintenance stage to consider is security; once the system is fully functional it is necessary to confirm that there is no access to security breach by maintaining a strong security system throughout the life of the database.