DBMS Reading

As most of the access science articles, the assigned article is pretty “cut and dry” , but it provided me with several interesting pieces of information. It briefly described the concept of federated database, and as a result of it, I now better understand the concept behind Bentley software, presented in class few week back. In addition to that, I was blown away about the widespread current use and storage capacity needed to accommodate databases. The annual sales for DBMS software simply blew me away.
This article placed a lot of emphasis on the software and the user interface when working with DBMS. I have not created databases before, but I have manipulated (populated) some of them for construction document management purposes, and I used this software FastLook DBMS5 (by Kamel Software), which I took for granted, because it was so simple to use. Today I found out that it took my bass over a decade to find such user friendly software for DBMS.
The assigned article described the basic principle of Relational Databases, which gave me a very broad understanding of its purpose, but I still do not entirely grasp how it functions (I am sure by the time the assignment is due, I will). I did some additional research on the relational databases and two articles stood out:

• Memory Storage Issues of Temporal Database Applications on Relational Database Management Systems


• Promoting active learning through case driven approach: an empirical study on database course

First article seemed to be interesting, because it described a temporal database model (which deals with time related data). This article taught me that there are many more things to consider when working with databases, and that they can be as small an limited or as larger as one can imagine. Temporal database associates relations of time-related attributes to the data entries describing when that data was, is, or will be true. Time also can be modeled as a pint or an interval. The time model could be linear (only one data set associated with that time) or as branched (numerous data attributes associated with that time stamp). Despite very complicate equations presented tin this article, I learned that DBMS is a science in itself, which led me to my second article, discussing the methods of teaching it. The second article describes 4 paths in training recent graduates to transition into corporate world via learning Relational Database management Systems. What I took from this article is that this field of study is not as transparent as it seemed before. It was proven, that it is too difficult to learn DBMS with all of its critical components in two days time of fast track training. It was also determined, that those with Computer Science background produced much better results. This makes sense, since much of what I read about DBMS, I personally cannot fully understand. I find it beneficial to have gained this broad knowledge of DBMS, but I sincerely hope I will not have to fully understand the mechanics of it in my professional future.