MMIS 630 Database Systems – Final Exam

1. What are the issues in the normalization vs. performance trade-off? Discuss. Your essay should (1) define and describe the characteristics of normalization, (2) define and describe the characteristics of performance, and (3) define and describe what is meant by “performance trade-off”, (4) summarize your essay with recommendations and/or guidelines regarding use of normalization in database design.

ANS:

When we take a close look in designing a database one may not be thinking of normalization and performance, we may just be thinking, “I have this major project due in several months, I do not have time to be considering about formal techniques and performance, I will worry about this later.” Though this may occur in industry, database designers need to keep in mind that utilization of scarce resources such as processor time, network utilization, memory, etc., are very critical and can have a significant impact on database access and retrieval. As I had previously mentioned in our forum, one of the main concerns to keep in mind is that in other fields being 2 or 3 times slower may not be noticeable and certainly may not have a long term affect but in the realm of computers, having a multiplier can be detrimental in our resultant. What does this mean? It would simply mean that 1) Your database is not consistent OR 2) Your database is lacking the performance. Finding the equilibrium in this case can be a task like working with two equations setting them equal to each other for all else to be equal.

What is Normalization? Normalization as stated in our text is, “A technique for producing a set of relations with desirable properties, given the data requirements of an enterprise.” What does this mean? It means that normalization is a process and it is often to perform a sequence of tests to see whether it