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Information System and Architecture

The document discusses information system infrastructure and architecture. It states that an information system infrastructure consists of core networks, databases, software, hardware and procedures that support organizational agility. When organized coherently, specific information systems that support operations constitute an organization's system architecture. An organization's strategic plans must be considered when designing the infrastructure and architecture. The document then discusses the Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC) process used to develop, create and maintain information systems. It describes the SDLC as a multi-step iterative process with traditionally five stages, now increased to seven phases. Finally, the document discusses database schemas at the internal, conceptual and external levels used for data abstraction to make database systems more efficient and

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Cyrus R. Flores
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137 views4 pages

Information System and Architecture

The document discusses information system infrastructure and architecture. It states that an information system infrastructure consists of core networks, databases, software, hardware and procedures that support organizational agility. When organized coherently, specific information systems that support operations constitute an organization's system architecture. An organization's strategic plans must be considered when designing the infrastructure and architecture. The document then discusses the Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC) process used to develop, create and maintain information systems. It describes the SDLC as a multi-step iterative process with traditionally five stages, now increased to seven phases. Finally, the document discusses database schemas at the internal, conceptual and external levels used for data abstraction to make database systems more efficient and

Uploaded by

Cyrus R. Flores
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Information system infrastructure and architecture

A well-designed information system rests on a coherent foundation that supports responsive change—and, thus,
the organization’s agility—as new business or administrative initiatives arise. Known as the information
system infrastructure, the foundation consists of core telecommunications networks, databases and data
warehouses, software, hardware, and procedures managed by various specialists. With business globalization, an
organization’s infrastructure often crosses many national boundaries. Establishing and maintaining such a
complex infrastructure requires extensive planning and consistent implementation to handle strategic corporate
initiatives, transformations, mergers, and acquisitions. Information system infrastructure should be established in
order to create meaningful options for future corporate development.
When organized into a coherent whole, the specific information systems that support operations, management,
and knowledge work constitute the system architecture of an organization. Clearly, an organization’s long-term
general strategic plans must be considered when designing an information system infrastructure and architecture.

SDLC
The Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC) is a process used in the development, creation, and maintenance
of an information system. This process is often used in the creation or updating of a database system, and can
serve as a useful tool for anyone trying to undertake a large database project.

The Seven Phases of the System-Development Life Cycle

The system-development life cycle enables users to transform a newly-developed project into an operational one.

The System Development Life Cycle, "SDLC" for short, is a multistep, iterative process, structured in a methodical
way. This process is used to model or provide a framework for technical and non-technical activities to deliver a
quality system which meets or exceeds a business"s expectations or manage decision-making progression.

Traditionally, the systems-development life cycle consisted of five stages. That has now increased to seven
phases. Increasing the number of steps helped systems analysts to define clearer actions to achieve specific
goals.

Similar to a project life cycle (PLC), the SDLC uses a systems approach to describe a process. It is often used
and followed when there is an IT or IS project under development.

The SDLC highlights different stages (phrases or steps) of the development process. The life cycle approach is
used so users can see and understand what activities are involved within a given step. It is also used to let them
know that at any time, steps can be repeated or a previous step can be reworked when needing to modify or
improve the system.

PROTOTYPING
"Prototypes help designers and developers build partial product implementations, which potential end-users or customers use
to provide feedback to the development team before full-scale development begins (Kan, 2003)."
Prototyping is an essential step in the product development process used by organisations. The concept explains the
advantages and disadvantages of different approaches to prototyping and describes the critical factors and measures
needed to implement prototyping successfully.
Prototyping Definition
A prototype is a partial implementation of a product expressed either logically or physically with all external interfaces presented
(Kan, 2003). “A software prototype is an executable model of the proposed software system. It must be producible with
significantly less effort than the planned product. It must be readily modifiable and extensible. The prototype need not have all the
features of the target system, yet it must enable the user to test all important system features before the actual implementation”
(Pomberger & Blaschek, 1996).

DBMS Schemas: Internal, Conceptual, External


Database systems comprise of complex data structures. Thus, to make the system efficient for
retrieval of data and reduce the complexity of the users, developers use the method of Data
Abstraction.

There are mainly three levels of data abstraction:

1. Internal Level: Actual PHYSICAL storage structure and access paths.


2. Conceptual or Logical Level: Structure and constraints for the entire database
3. External or View level: Describes various user views

Internal Level/Schema

The internal schema defines the physical storage structure of the database. The internal schema is a very low-
level representation of the entire database. It contains multiple occurrences of multiple types of internal record. In
the ANSI term, it is also called "stored record'.

Facts about Internal schema:

 The internal schema is the lowest level of data abstraction


 It helps you to keeps information about the actual representation of the entire database. Like the actual
storage of the data on the disk in the form of records
 The internal view tells us what data is stored in the database and how
 It never deals with the physical devices. Instead, internal schema views a physical device as a collection of
physical pages

Conceptual Schema/Level

The conceptual schema describes the Database structure of the whole database for the community of users. This
schema hides information about the physical storage structures and focuses on describing data types, entities,
relationships, etc.
This logical level comes between the user level and physical storage view. However, there is only single
conceptual view of a single database.

Facts about Conceptual schema:

 Defines all database entities, their attributes, and their relationships


 Security and integrity information
 In the conceptual level, the data available to a user must be contained in or derivable from the physical
level

External Schema/Level

An external schema describes the part of the database which specific user is interested in. It hides the unrelated
details of the database from the user. There may be "n" number of external views for each database.

Each external view is defined using an external schema, which consists of definitions of various types of external
record of that specific view.

An external view is just the content of the database as it is seen by some specific particular user. For example, a
user from the sales department will see only sales related data.

Facts about external schema:

 An external level is only related to the data which is viewed by specific end users.
 This level includes some external schemas.
 External schema level is nearest to the user
 The external schema describes the segment of the database which is needed for a certain user group and
hides the remaining details from the database from the specific user group

Goal of 3 level/schema of Database

Here, are some Objectives of using Three schema Architecture:

 Every user should be able to access the same data but able to see a customized view of the data.
 The user need not to deal directly with physical database storage detail.
 The DBA should be able to change the database storage structure without disturbing the user's views
 The internal structure of the database should remain unaffected when changes made to the physical
aspects of storage.

Advantages Database Schema

 You can manage data independent of the physical storage


 Faster Migration to new graphical environments
 DBMS Architecture allows you to make changes on the presentation level without affecting the other two
layers
 As each tier is separate, it is possible to use different sets of developers
 It is more secure as the client doesn't have direct access to the database business logic
 In case of the failure of the one-tier no data loss as you are always secure by accessing the other tier

Disadvantages Database Schema

 Complete DB Schema is a complex structure which is difficult to understand for every one
 Difficult to set up and maintain
 The physical separation of the tiers can affect the performance of the Database

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