Bus 237 Ch 17 Lec 7 Data and Competitive Advantage

What is a Database?

An organized collection of data, often stored in multiple related tables.

What is a Self-describing database?

A database system that contains information describing its data, such as attributes, data types, and relationships between tables.

Entity

A fundamental component of a database, usually represented as a table.

Attribute

A property or characteristic of an entity, represented as a column in a table.

Record

A single entry in a table, all the values for an entity's attributes in one row.

Primary Key (PK)

A unique identifier for a record in a table.

Foreign Key (FK)

An attribute in one table that refers to the primary key in another table, establishing a relationship.

One-to-One Relationship (1:1)

A relationship where one record in Table A corresponds to one record in Table B.

One-to-Many Relationship (1:M)

A relationship where one record in Table A can be connected to many records in Table B.

Many-to-Many Relationship (M:N)

A relationship where many records in Table A can relate to many records in Table B.

ERD (Entity Relationship Diagram)

A diagram that visually represents entities and the relationships between them in a database.

Normalization

The process of organizing data into related tables to reduce redundancy and improve data consistency.

Junction Table

A table used to resolve a many-to-many relationship into two one-to-many relationships.

Member ID

A primary key in the Members table that uniquely identifies each member.

Sales Table

A table that records transactions made by members, referencing Member ID as a foreign key.