Database Application Development.

IT 655 Milestone Two Guidelines and Rubric Overview: The second portion of the final project will assume that you successfully presented to the board of directors, convincing them to move forward with your project to improve the functionality of the database. As such, you are asked to develop an action plan that builds upon your presentation and provides more detailed steps and narrative as to what specifically should be done to address the various performance and latency issues experienced by the County of Everstone. Prompt: The County of Everstone is a large county in a densely populated state in the United States. This county has a total of 34 incorporated cities within its boundaries. Overall, the county has a population exceeding 4 million residents. The county employs a proprietary database management system that is responsible for the county’s property tax assessment, parcel, and payment information. In a recent initiative, the county has been highly promoting the use of its online property tax payment and lookup information to reduce mailed payments and in-office visits. The marketing campaign for online property tax payments and information lookup has been highly successful. However, the county’s database systems have not sufficiently handled the increased traffic. As such, the web application available to residents often experiences high amounts of latency, frequently locks up, or in many instances is unavailable. The board of directors has asked executive IT management to look into the issue and provide a prompt resolution to the matter. A review of the hardware and software systems that the database management systems employ reveals that these systems “should” be able to take the capacity and load. Therefore, the IT management has ruled out hardware systems as being the issue. Upon further investigation, a lead database systems administrator preliminarily reports that the issue appears to stem not from the hardware, but rather from a need to provide performance tuning on the database. The database design seems to be the culprit, since this database systems administrator noted large quantities of duplicated data, poorly written database queries, and triggers. Furthermore, the chief information officer (CIO) has also directed the web programmers and web developers to look at the web application for potential issues. The web development team has reported that while no design or programming issues were found with the web application, the stored procedures (queries) that it runs from the database server take long periods of time to run and frequently lock up the web servers. They suspect the queries were not designed for efficiency, since they were created before more individuals started using the online property tax payment system. Your action plan will be in the form of an APA report, as is professionally acceptable. For further guidance in formatting and structure, see the “Guidelines for Submission” located above the rubric. Your action plan report should address the following critical elements:

I. Executive Overview: Provide a general, high-level overview outlining the key issues, high-level recommendations, and important considerations to remediate performance and latency concerns.

II. Performance Tuning

a) Describe what types of tuning should be done to enhance database performance and how database transaction might be replicated to other database servers.

b) Defend your recommendations using relevant research and explaining how you formed your conclusions. III. Query Design

a) Explain the application of query design and how queries can be made more efficient, while attending to issues relating to joins, sub-queries, and sorting. Additionally, you should explain issues that could arise from select, update, and delete queries. Be sure to cater your explanation to the specifics of the scenario case.

b) Consider how refining the selection criteria could enhance the efficiency of database queries. In other words, how would you propose attending to the issues relevant to queries highlighted in the scenario, and why?

c) Design database queries for optimum performance for the scenario, and defend your conclusions. IV. Data Duplication and Redundancy

a) Explain database normalization in terms of its use and purpose for the scenario. In other words, provide an explanation of database normalization and other techniques that can be utilized to reduce data duplication and redundancy within the scenario database.

b) Defend the selection of techniques explained as being potential solutions for data duplication and redundancy within the scenario database. V. Multiple-User Access Issues and Errors

a) Develop a strategy that will allow for troubleshooting run-time and application errors. Describe some common errors that are seen in commercial database systems and propose mitigation.

b) Describe what high-level methods could be used to enhance multi-user access within databases in general. c) Create a set of database design specifications that would provide for multi-user access for the property tax payment and information system.

The design specifications should provide details on concurrency control, record locking, and user security, and they should also provide room for future database growth. Discuss the impact of these changes and what resources would be required.

Rubric Guidelines for Submission: Your report should be in APA format, following the organization, section inclusion, stylistic, and reference requirements for APA. For more information on creating successful APA reports, click here. Instructor Feedback: This activity uses an integrated rubric in Blackboard. Students can view instructor feedback in the Grade Center. For more information, review these instructions.

Critical Elements Proficient (100%) Needs Improvement (70%) Not Evident (0%) Value

Executive Overview Provides an accurate, high-level overview outlining key issues, high-level recommendations, and important considerations to remediate performance and latency concerns

Provides an overview, but overview is not high level, or does not accurately address key issues, high-level recommendations, and important considerations to remediate performances and latency concerns

Does not provide an overview including high-level recommendations and important considerations to remediate performances and latency concerns

8.7

Performance Tuning: Types Makes clear, logical recommendations for performance tuning for the scenario with a detailed explanation of how database transaction might be replicated to other servers

Makes recommendations for performance tuning for the scenario with a detailed explanation of how database transaction might be replicated to other servers, but recommendations are not clear or are not logical

Does not make recommendations for performance tuning for the scenario with a detailed explanation of how database transaction might be replicated to other servers

8.7

Performance Tuning: Defend Provides a thorough, logical, and supported defense for performance tuning recommendations

Provides a defense for performance tuning recommendations, but defense is not thorough, not logical, or not supported

Does not provide a defense for performance tuning recommendations

8.7

Query Design: Explanation

Provides a detailed explanation of query design and improvement techniques as related to the context of the scenario

Provides an explanation of query design and improvement techniques, but explanation lacks detail or is not catered to the context of the scenario

Does not provide an explanation of query design and improvement techniques

8.7

Query Design: Efficiency

Makes thorough and reasonable recommendations for attending to query issues highlighted in the scenario

Makes recommendations for attending to query issues highlighted in the scenario, but recommendations lack detail or reasonableness

Does not make recommendations for attending to query issues highlighted in the scenario

8.7

Query Design: Design and Defend

Designs and defends database queries that would optimize performance in accordance with the scenario requirements

Designs and defends database queries for optimum performances, but the queries would not successfully optimize performance according to the requirements of the scenario

Does not design and defend database queries for optimum performances

8.7

Data Duplication and Redundancy: Explain

Accurately explains the use and purpose of database normalizations and other potentially useful techniques within the context of the scenario

Explains the use and purpose of database normalizations and other potentially useful techniques, but lacks detail or accuracy, or is not explained within the context of the scenario

Does not explain the use and purpose of database normalizations and other potentially useful techniques

8.7

Data Duplication and Redundancy: Defend

Provides a logical defense and supporting rationale for normalization and other techniques for mitigating duplication and redundancy within the scenario

Provides a defense and supporting rationale for normalization and other techniques, but defense lacks detail or has gaps in logic

Does not provide a defense and supporting rationale for normalization and other techniques

8.7

Multiple-User Access Issues and Errors: Strategy

Develops a multi-user strategy that will allow for troubleshooting run-time and application errors, specifically commonly occurring errors seen in commercial databases

Develops a multi-user strategy that will allow for troubleshooting, but strategy is not specific to those errors commonly seen in commercial databases

Does not develop a multi-user strategy that will allow for troubleshooting

8.7

Multiple-User Access Issues and Errors: Methods

Accurately describes what high- level methods could be used to enhance multi-user access within databases in general

Describes what high-level methods could be used to enhance multi-user access within databases in general, but with gaps in accuracy and detail

Does not describe which high- level methods could be used to enhance multi-user access within databases in general

8.7

Multiple-User Access Issues and Errors: Specifications

Creates and discusses the impact of a set of database design requirements that would provide multi-user access for tax payment and information systems; provides details on controls, record locking, user security, and database growth

Creates and discusses the impact of a set of database design requirements, but does not attend to one of the specified topics, or discussion of impact lacks detail or accuracy

Does not create and discuss the impact of a set of database design requirements

8.7

Articulation of Response Submission has no major errors related to citations, grammar, spelling, syntax, or organization

Submission has major errors related to citations, grammar, spelling, syntax, or organization that negatively impact readability and articulation of main ideas

Submission has critical errors related to citations, grammar, spelling, syntax, or organization that prevent understanding of ideas

4.3

Earned Total 100%