Week 24 - DROP TABLE IF EXISTS CST363;

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Below are 3 topics covered in Database Management that I consider to be important:

ERDs & Data Integrity

I’m not a newcomer to ERDs but after this course I realized how powerful they are in modeling real-world systems. I now understand the importance of using ERDs to map out entities, their attributes, and the relationships between them before actually implementing them in database. MySQL Workbench proved to be a great tool for this and made this process much easier by allowing me to visually organize and structure the database. Working on scenarios that included customers, orders, and inventory helped me get comfortable designing relational databases and enforcing key relationships.

The enforcement of data integrity using constraints like primary keys, foreign keys, and schema validation also helped ensure reliability in data.

Web Application Integration with JDBC and MongoDB

Integrating databases into web applications was probably the most exciting part of the course. Using JDBC to connect a Java application to a MySQL database helped me understand how to bring a database to life within a web system. My group worked on a prescription drug system that required careful validation of IDs and pharmacy names, and this exercise taught me the importance of designing efficient database queries.

Switching from MySQL to MongoDB was another major step in my learning journey. It became evident that MongoDB provided more flexibility when we transitioned a web application to NoSQL, for this particular scenario, of course. Working with Spring Boot and integrating MongoDB into the backend showed me how useful NoSQL databases are for scenarios where data relationships are not as rigid.

This whole process allowed me to understand what database technologies might be more suitable based on needs of the application.

SQL Querying

I was also not a newcomer to SQL Querying, but working on the projects and labs helped consolidate my knowledge in this area. Writing queries to retrieve and manipulate data efficiently helped me understand relational database structures on a deeper level. I became more comfortable using joins, subqueries, and filtering, which allowed me to extract data. As some of these queries got more complex, I realized that SQL can be quite thought-provoking. Learning SQL in CST363 has equipped me with the skills necessary to manage and analyze data.

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