Week 11: Muddy

I must admit that I found the information contained in this weeks reading and lectures to be very informative but yet confusing at times. The process for database building and maintenance was very in depth and contained many steps that most small businesses probably fail to work through. Even after listening to the lectures twice and reading the chapter I found myself wanting some more information. Thank you Google.

http://www.databasemanagementtips.info/

This website provided a little bit of an explanation however it didn't go into the depth that the section covered. What it did bring to light is that we take them for granted. We are so accustomed to logging on to Expedia or Bing and just typing in what we want and getting it. We take for granted the the computer systems that a teller at a bank uses to tell us our balance or transfer funds. I have been able to experience this in the past when I was a teller at a bank. I was working for a small regional bank with 500 locations and we had our own system of programs and places where information was stored. After learning this system in and out to the point that I was able to troubleshoot problems for some of my bosses, I learned that the bank had been purchased by a large international banking firm that had there very own database and operating systems to do the same functions that we did. During the course of the merger it took almost a full year to get our database to the point where they could at the least compile all of the information into a form that there database would read and eventually take over.

What many people forget is that even old information for closed accounts must be retained for every branch and every transaction. I was not privy to the process that this database transfer was a part of but I do know that the 12 months were not just because. During this time I was questioned many times about the functions of certain parts and the procedures that we used to attain this information. I am no computer programmer but I had developed a knowledge of the uses of the outdated database that gave programmers some of the information they needed to transfer the data. The whole process continues to be very muddy to me and hopefully if I am ever in a situation to need it I will be able to just hire a consultant that is a professional in this line of work