What is a subtype in an ERD representing an inheritance hierarchy?
- Child
- Parent
- Subclass
- Superclass
In an ERD, a subtype represents a subclass in an inheritance hierarchy. It inherits attributes and relationships from a superclass or parent entity. This modeling technique helps capture commonalities and differences among entities, promoting a more flexible and efficient database design.
In data warehousing, what is the purpose of a roll-up operation?
- Roll-up is a compression technique to reduce storage space in data warehousing.
- Roll-up is a dimension hierarchization process to move from detailed to summary levels.
- Roll-up is a security feature restricting access to certain data in a data warehouse.
- Roll-up is used to drill down into detailed data, providing a more granular view.
In data warehousing, a roll-up operation involves moving from a detailed level to a higher-level summary. It is part of the dimension hierarchization process, allowing users to analyze data at different levels of granularity. Understanding roll-up operations is essential for designing efficient and user-friendly data warehouses.
Scenario: A social media platform wants to store user profiles with varying attributes and preferences. Each user profile may have different sets of data. Which type of database would you recommend for this scenario and why?
- Document Database
- Graph Database
- Key-Value Store
- Relational Database
In this scenario, a Document Database would be suitable. Document databases allow flexible storage of data with varying attributes, making them ideal for user profiles with different sets of data. Each user profile can be represented as a document, and the database can handle varying attributes efficiently.
In which scenarios would you consider adding an index to a database table?
- Frequently updated columns
- Small tables with a few records
- Tables used for historical data
- Tables with sequential data access patterns
Indexing is beneficial in scenarios where columns are frequently updated. However, it may not be suitable for small tables or those with sequential data access patterns, as the overhead may outweigh the benefits.
When might denormalization be beneficial in database design?
- To enforce data integrity constraints
- To improve read performance in a data warehouse
- To reduce redundancy and storage space
- To simplify complex queries
Denormalization can be beneficial in database design when there is a need to improve read performance in a data warehouse scenario. It involves strategically introducing redundancy to streamline query processing and retrieval of large datasets.
What is the primary goal of Reverse Engineering in database management?
- To create a conceptual data model
- To create a physical data model
- To generate a higher-level model from an existing database schema
- To optimize database performance
Reverse Engineering in database management aims to generate a higher-level model, such as a conceptual data model, from an existing database schema. This process is useful for understanding and documenting an already implemented database structure.
_______ is a constraint that enforces data integrity by ensuring that a column cannot contain NULL values.
- Foreign Key
- NOT NULL
- Primary Key
- Unique Key
NOT NULL is a constraint that enforces data integrity by ensuring that a column cannot contain NULL values. It is used to specify that a column must have a value, preventing the insertion of records with missing or undefined data.
Column-family stores are optimized for _______ and _______.
- Consistency, Availability
- Read-intensive workloads, Write-intensive workloads
- Readability, Writeability
- Transactions, Indexing
Column-family stores are optimized for both read-intensive and write-intensive workloads. This makes them suitable for scenarios where there is a need for high scalability and performance in both read and write operations.
What is the central table in a Star Schema?
- Dimension Table
- Fact Table
- Lookup Table
- Reference Table
In a Star Schema, the central table is the Fact Table. This table contains the core data of the schema and is usually surrounded by Dimension Tables that provide context and additional details for the data in the Fact Table. The Fact Table typically contains numerical measures or facts that business users want to analyze.
How does indexing improve query performance in a database?
- Decreases the overall database size
- Increases the complexity of queries
- Reduces the number of records in a table
- Speeds up data retrieval by providing a quick access path
Indexing improves query performance by creating a quick access path to the data. It reduces the number of records that need to be scanned, making data retrieval faster for specific queries.