Designing a Database for Gulf Automotive: Advanced Database Concepts

Objective: The assignment constitutes 70% of the module mark. Assessment focuses on design and research issues related to Database Management Systems. Each student submits a detailed report as per the task specifications through Moodle. The assignment has two sections (Part A and Part B) focusing on advanced database concepts: Part A focuses on analysis of key factors of structured and unstructured data. In part B you are required to write a scholarly academic article based on critical engagement with work done in Part-A.

Overall Learning Outcomes (LOs) of the module:
1. Evaluate the role of conceptual modeling in the development of database systems and apply the entity-relationship modeling approach to a realistic scenario.

2. Apply the essential concepts of relational databases, demonstrate best practice in the development of an appropriate and effective database system and discuss the big data concepts.

3. Select and apply appropriate techniques involved in database administration.

4. Critically evaluate security issues relating to database management systems and propose appropriate strategies to address security problems

Part A
Scenario:
Gulf automotive is one of the leading automotive dealers which sells various brands of vehicles. The Company intends to automate the process of registration of all the customers such as individual, corporate, government etc. at all its cities and interconnect them to enhance the reliability of its automotive business. To start with, you can imagine that there could be many cities in the country and there is a scope of increase in the number of showrooms as per the adopted policies by the government from time to time. Further, there could be different vehicle makes and each make has various models. Various types of activities such as sales, service, spare parts sales etc. The overall automation process may result in a very huge database of both structured and unstructured data, which, may need frequent updates. This sort of data may also be considered as big data.

Consider you are responsible to carry out a study of the requirements of registering customers and vehicle sales; suggest a possible solution of designing such a database. Propose a conceptual model, a database management system and related security measures in-line with system data management. You can make relevant assumptions required to formulate business rules, security, and administration.

Based on the above information execute the following tasks. Should there be a need, you can make suitable assumptions to execute the said tasks

Task 1:
Submit a work proposal for this assignment on or before 23:59 on Saturday (before the end of Week-4) which must include:
Initial understanding of tasks and solutions – a detailed description of deliverables.
General overview of the given tasks – (Part A and Part-B) - initial understanding of solution to all tasks with timeline to complete them and identification of literature resources. (For more clarity, please refer to criteria of evaluating the work proposal given on the last page of this assignment).

Overall Learning Outcomes (LOs) of the module

Task 2:
Design an Entity Relationship Diagram (ERD) to model the above scenario. Identify the different entities and attributes of each entity. Suggest and justify the choice of relationship and cardinality of the relationship. State the assumptions (if any) made by you to develop the ERD based on your research. Provide detailed analysis and justification for the selection of entities and attributes based on your research.

Task 3:
Assume that you are responsible to set up a sustainable datacenter for the above mentioned scenario of a chosen country. You are required to hire different types of IT professionals to manage your data center which include IT technician, network administrators, system administrators and database administrator. You are required to research the roles and responsibilities of database administrator for the datacenter. Critically analyze the roles and responsibilities based on your research to hire a database administrator. 

Task 4: As a database administrator evaluate different Database Management system Software for the above scenario. You are required to prepare a technical and financial feasibility report. You are required to critically analyse each aspects and suggest the best suitable database management system software for the above scenario with appropriate justifications.
 
Task 5: As a database administrator identification of specific roles for application users, authentication policy, storage management and database recovery are critical. The efficiency and complexity of database administration depends on the identified strategy and tools. Propose and critically review user management, backup/recovery strategy, storage management/techniques formulated for the system discussed in Task  

Task 6: There will be an industry speaker talk on security of huge databases during the semester. You are required to attend the same without fail and submit a report comprising an executive summary including self-reflections on the industry guest speaker talk.

Part B
Write a research article in IEEE Format on “research article can cover big data concepts; present trends in database management, technology enhancements regarding databases or any innovative ideas regarding database administration". The research article can be approximately 2500 words.
Present the research article using a poster presentation covering the following aspects of research:
Problem specification, importance of research and research questions
Theoretical framework
Rigor of literature review
Methods or empirical analysis techniques;
Key findings and conclusions; 

As a Post Graduate student, you are required to spend time in research and study. Apply the research skills (such as ability to formulate research questions; technical and analytical skills to solve those questions, ability to communicate results) to prepare your article. It is expected that a Post Graduate student demonstrates the research abilities to expand his/her knowledge on latest database technology. Importantly, to achieve the above goal, you are expected to learn with much greater independence and need to do a significant background reading on the
chosen topic. The template (Microsoft word file) for the article will be made available on the Moodle soon.

The date, venue and specifications of the poster presentation will be communicated to you. No marks will be awarded if poster presentation is not done.

Guidelines
Follow the guidelines mentioned below for your assignment.
i. Students are expected to do a critical analysis of the tasks and present their analysis by drawing on relevant theoretical concepts. Marks will be awarded based on the ability of students to undertake the task in a logical manner by drawing on appropriate concepts and theoretical frameworks literatures ii. Report should have a Title Page. Title Page should contain the following information.
a. Assignment Name
b. Student name
c. Student ID
iii. It should have Table of Contents.
iv. Use page numbers.
v. Assignment should be typed in your own words using Times New Roman font.
vi. Use Diagrams to explain in detail.
vii. Use suitable notations in your diagrams.
viii. Copy paste from the Internet is strictly not acceptable.
ix. References should be included in the last page and literature under pinning is needed at
the point of explaining the concept.
x. Attach the evidences (if any). 

The purpose of assignment is to do some research work so you can consult books in Library or use internet or computer magazines or any other source. We are obliged to establish assessment criteria and then mark you upon how well (or otherwise) you meet those criteria. In turn, our assessment of you will be scrutinized by the external examiners, so we must be able to defend the marks we award. 

Feedback to students: will be given through Moodle by the end of Week-6 for Work proposal and by the end of week-14 for the main assignment.