Database Design Assessment

Learning Outcomes:

As part of the formal assessment for the programme you are required to submit a Database Design assessment. Please refer to your Student Handbook for full details of the programme assessment scheme and general information on preparing and submitting assignments.

Learning Outcomes:

After completing the module, you should be able to:

1. Demonstrate a knowledge and understanding of databases and data management systems.
2. Understand key principles of relational database design techniques.
3. Transform a logical database design into a physical database design for a target database management system.
4. Apply knowledge and understanding of database design and development to design, implement, test, document and evaluate a relational database solution for a given scenario.

5. Use appropriate problem-solving techniques.

Undertake critical analysis and reach reasoned and evidenced decisions, contribute problem-solving skills to find and innovate in solutions

Expected outputs: Report detailing the answers to each question. Functioning SQL database, hosted on the Arden student server.

Please note that exceeding the word count by over 10% will result in a reduction in grade by the same percentage that the word count is exceeded.

You must not include your name in your submission because Arden University operates anonymous marking, which means that markers should not be aware of the identity of the student. However, please do not forget to include your STU number.

You have been employed as a junior database developer for a small start-up video production company. They have purchased a license for a large catalogue of music which can be used in any of their products, and they want an efficient, speedy way to search this catalogue through their intranet.

The company’s software engineer and front-end developer will be taking responsibility forcreating the interface, but right now the data itself is stored in an incredibly inefficient manner. The company has bought you on board to organise their data into a usable form.

There is already a tech stack in use by the company, meaning that they require the new database to be hosted on their existing MySQL platform.

They would like you to transform the raw data into a structured database from which they can extract useful information and check which music is available for use in videos.

A meeting with the video producers and editors leaves you with the following notes:

Certain well known songs are requested as a reference to a historic movie (Like “Eye of the Tiger” from Rocky, or “Ride of the Valkyries” from Apocalypse Now), so they must be identifiable by the song name.

However, the more popular songs by an artist can be overused, so they would like to be able to view all songs on any particular album, so that they can identify high quality “B-sides”. The company also creates documentaries about musicians, so will sometimes want to access that artist’s entire discography.

Expected Outputs

Sometimes the company is contracted to produce title sequences, which are typically 60-90seconds in length, and advertisements can be as short as 30 seconds. Some of the music will be used for family friendly products, so they must be able to exclude songs containing bad language and adult references.

Task 1 – Logical Data Model (ERD)

Develop a logical data model for the music data in the form of an entity-relationship diagram (ERD). This should detail the cardinality of relationships, attributes of each entity, be normalised to 3NF and keys for each entity should be defined with the type of key appropriately identified.

Task 2 – Physical Data Model (ERD)

Develop your logical design into a more detailed ERD in the form of a physical data model. This should include appropriately named tables and columns, indicating types and constraints. Keys for each table should be defined with the type of key appropriately identified. Document this in your report.

Task 3 – Database Implementation

Create and run a set of SQL statements to turn the physical design into an actual database. This should consist of several CREATE TABLE statements that accurately reflect the physical data model, including data types, constraints, and keys.

Document these in your report and run the statements on your Student Server SQL installation to create an empty copy of the database.

Create and run a set of SQL SELECT queries to export appropriate data-sets from the raw data for migration into your planned new structure. Use these queries along with appropriate import functions in an SQL administration tool , or another appropriate method, to populate your empty database on the Student Server.

Document this process in your report explaining, under each query, its function in plain English. Record and analyse any challenges you encounter in transposing the data and what steps you have taken to resolve them.

Task 4 – Example queries

To demonstrate that your final database is useful, write a minimum of five realistic sample SQL queries (use your imagination and the notes from the scenario to come up with sensible suggestions).

Document these in your report, under each explaining the function of the query in plain English and the expected results in terms of the columns that should be returned, number of rows/records expected and some example data (copy and paste tabular data, or a screenshot). These queries will be tested against the copy of your database held on the student server, to ensure that they function as expected.