Database Sampling to Support the Development of Information Systems

A prototype database is a model of a database which
exhibits the desired properties, in terms of its
schema and data values, of an operational database.
Database prototyping has been proposed as a technique
to support the database application development
process. Existing work on this area has been widely
ignored in practice mainly on the grounds that its
benefits, i.e. an increase in the quality of the
resulting software systems, do not justify the costs
of developing and using a satisfactory prototype of
the database under construction.

Increasingly more software development projects
consist of extending or enhancing existing systems,
as opposed to developing new ones. Examples include
legacy information systems migration and WEB-enabling
existing systems. In these types of projects, using
the entire operational database may not be
cost-effective and a carefully selected subset may be
more appropriate. The availability of operational
data and a database schema can significantly reduce
the effort required to build an appropriate prototype
database to support the project at hand. This work
investigates how such a prototype database should be
constructed.

Autorentext
Jesus Bisbal is a researcher at University Pompeu Fabra, Spain, and holds a PhD by Trinity College Dublin. His work focuses on biomedical data integration. Jane Grimson is a professor in Health Informatics at Trinity College Dublin, and author of over 150 papers. Her research focuses on eHealth.

Klappentext
A prototype database is a model of a database which exhibits the desired properties, in terms of its schema and data values, of an operational database. Database prototyping has been proposed as a technique to support the database application development process. Existing work on this area has been widely ignored in practice mainly on the grounds that its benefits, i.e. an increase in the quality of the resulting software systems, do not justify the costs of developing and using a satisfactory prototype of the database under construction. Increasingly more software development projects consist of extending or enhancing existing systems, as opposed to developing new ones. Examples include legacy information systems migration and WEB-enabling existing systems. In these types of projects, using the entire operational database may not be cost-effective and a carefully selected subset may be more appropriate. The availability of operational data and a database schema can significantly reduce the effort required to build an appropriate prototype database to support the project at hand. This work investigates how such a prototype database should be constructed.