DISCUSSION REPLY

Discussion 1

Knowledge-centric organizations have incorporated modern technological systems in their creation and management of knowledge. In a business organization, the knowledge-centric department is dedicated to creating and updating knowledge as part of strategic thinking and business operations. It is possible to achieve knowledge centricity when there are sufficient systems associated with its creation and management embedded in the organization’s structure (Eini, 2018).  Modern technological systems for data storage and management have played a critical role in the success of knowledge-centric organizations. Provide a suitable database is chosen, the organization involved can do well their routine operations related to knowledge acquisition, utilization, and storage.

            While databases in knowledge-centric organizations have been of paramount importance in improving efficiency, some challenges accompany the process. Poor choice and implementation of a database can pose a severe setback to the organizational operations. One of the most significant challenges facing modern database systems is data security. Over a hundred thousand systems have been hacked in the last two years because their databases are vulnerable to malicious groups on the public internet. The vulnerability in most of these database’s stems from poor normalization. Eini (2018) states that there are databases designed on the fly without paying close attention to the basic rules of normalization. Without the third normal form, the end-user may delete records instead of querying or inserting them.  

            Similarly, several databases are subject to an improper performance criterion. Sometimes the incoming data might be exponentially rising in capacity and continue satisfying user needs; there is a need for high-speed processing without taking through hoops. Performance facing many knowledge-centric organizations stems from deploying a poor default and recognizing the operational environment. Therefore, in practice, some databases are not flexible enough to adapt dynamics of rapidly changing atmosphere. According to Eini (2018), a database should be designed for high-performance regardless of the hardware. A database that works well in older machines and small-sized systems such as Raspberry Pie implies good default performance.

            Date safety is another challenge facing modern database systems in knowledge-centric organizations. Some databases can quickly lose data for reasons related to poor user-interface, software- or hardware-related issues. Some databases do not guarantee ACID, especially when a fully transactional operation is involved (Eini, 2018). Whenever losses occur, the organizations may lose critical information leading to an extended downtime while seeking to recover the loss. Sometimes, customers may shun the organization’s services and migrate to other companies. Therefore, while databases promise data security, others may fail to meet this expectation through data losses.

 

Reference

Eini, O. (2018). How to overcome five common database challenges - JAXenter. Retrieved 22 February 2021, from https://jaxenter.com/overcome-5-common-database-challenges-149559.html

Discussion 2

Database is one of the most important pieces of technology and it is implemented in every organization. All the business data is stored and archived for several years. There are only few named vendors in market who provides this Database services and software’s. The primary target for the hackers would be breaching the database to collect the business information. So, it is critical tool that effects the functionalities of overall business.

One of my personal experience in dealing a poor database is with my previous client. They have chosen to use an open-source database client and customize it according to their needs.  They Plan to end the contract with one of the big companies like Oracle who was providing this service for an amount. Due to different and multiple developments in technologies the database became a simple open source. Using an open-source software is a good option in client budget perspective but at the same the number of risks is grater when compared to vendor supported platforms. Our infrastructure architect used this open source and customized it according to business needs.  After few we started noticing how poorly this was customized and found some security vulnerabilities. Due to the poor configurations, the data stored was unorganized and became unresponsive for every 24 hrs. The tables stored were saved with different file permissions and allowing other users to easily access this data. The stored data was not fully encrypted and stored with easy password in one file.  The connection pools set are very less and takes lot of time to respond.

All this issue would have been resolved if the open source is properly customized. The other solutions would be a proper planning, peer analysis before implementing and a strong team with enough Database knowledge. Any changes to Database showed be tested thoroughly and reviewed multiple time before implementing the change.  

References:

Berg, K. L., Seymour, T., & Goel, R. (2012). History of databases. International Journal of Management & Information Systems (IJMIS), 17(1), 29–36. https://doi.org/10.19030/ijmis.v17i1.7587

Garcia-Molina, H. (1992). Main Memory Database Systems: An Overview. Retrieved from, http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~jhuang/qual/main-memory-db-overview.pdf

Kraleva, R. S., Kralev, V. S., Sinyagina, N., Koprinkova-Hristova, P., & Bocheva, N. (2018). Design and analysis of a relational database for behavioral experiments data processing. International Journal of Online Engineering (IJOE), 14(02), 117. https://doi.org/10.3991/ijoe.v14i02.7988

Discussion 3

Poor Database design and its impact on the organization:

            Data plays a very important role in every organization. It is very important for every company to store the data in a safe and secure way. All the hackers would eventually target the data when they are trying to enter any system without proper authentication. So, it is very vital to store the data in a very safe way. (Pascal, 2020)

            The definition of well-defined data is that it maintains all the encryption for storing any sensitive information. Every organization should make sure that they are not storing any unnecessary data. If so, it will cause an extra burden on the company to store and retrieve that information. It also should make sure that the data is well normalized before storing.

Analysis on Cause of the Problem and a Potential Solution:

            The cause of the problem that I am discussing has occurred because it has failed to comply with some basic rules of data storage. It tried to store some confidential information and it also did not encrypt the data before storing it. So, when the hackers entered into the system via SQL injection, they noticed that the data is not so secured in storing and got hold of much confidential information. (Khanuja, Adane, 2018)

            The cause for this problem is that there are no proper validations for the application they designed in, so this made the hackers enter the system. After entering the system, the second cause for the data loss is the way they stored the data and they also have not maintained a secured connection between the database server and the application server. So, this is the second cause. (Shelly, Pradeep, 2019)

References:

Pascal, F. (2020, March). What First Normal Form really means and means not? Retrieved Oct 1, 2019, from Database Debunkings:  http://www.dbdebunk.com/page/page/629796.html

Khanuja HK, Adane DS. Database security threats and challenges in database forensic: A survey. In Proceedings of 2018 International Conference on Advancements in Information Technology (AIT 2011), available at http://www. pics. com/vol20/33-ICAIT2011-A4072. pdf 2018.

Shelly Rohilla, Pradeep Kumar Mittal, Database Security: Threats and Challenges, International Journal of Advanced Research in Computer Science and Software Engineering, Volume 3, Issue 5, May 2019.

Discussion 4

Poorly implemented database

     Poor database refers to the problems faced while constructing the database in the project environment. According to our requirement, database type can be changed, and the procedure for building can be designed. The front end helps to decide the back-end requirement, and that plays a significant role. Back end is also called a database, and connections can be established to store data from front end to back end. The poor database describes the problems and challenges involved in the database. According to my experience, problems of the database include poor Normalization (Durga & Jeyaprakash, 2019, July).

     Normalization is defined as a systematic approach of decomposing large tables to smaller and eliminates the data redundancy. Here redundancy refers to the reputation of data. It carries some undesirable characteristics like deleting anomalies, inserting, and updating. So, here Normalization plays a major role in database design. It has different forms according to the form requirement table designing can be utilized. Poor Normalization refers to the implementation of normal forms in the database that are not procedural and not up to the best. Decomposing the large tables into smaller ones helps to better understand, and storage capacity will be reduced. Data loss can mean huge losses for any company. Even though the company follows a lot of data storage practices, there is a big possibility that mistakes will occur. Without utilizing it properly, it will create a lot of problems in the database, like the repetition of data can cause primary key issues. It also lost its uniqueness. For example, a website accepts registration forms and providing a user account to the user, and that website not implemented normal forms properly. Here the problems will appear like they will register with user id as ‘111’, and other users also registered with the same id. Therefore, the first user id can upload his personnel data, and the second user id also accesses the same data, sharing their data without securing their accounts. It will create many problems while dealing with different transactions. So, Normalization plays a major role in building the database (Walach, et al., 2018).

References

Durga, V. S., & Jeyaprakash, T. (2019, July). An Effective Data Normalization Strategy for Academic Datasets using Log Values. In 2019 International Conference on Communication and Electronics Systems (ICCES) (pp. 610-612). IEEE.

Walach, J., Filzmoser, P., & Hron, K. (2018). Data Normalization and Scaling: Consequences for the Analysis in Omics Sciences. In Comprehensive Analytical Chemistry (Vol. 82, pp. 165-196). Elsevier.