Assignment 2: Structured and Unstructured Data

Best practices in IT change frequently to address new problems and to simplify and improve solutions. Innovations by IT professionals play a vital role in this process. This Application challenges you to identify a problem that standard relational database management (RDBMS) practices do not completely address, and to innovate a solution.

The strength of RDBMS technology is that it organizes information to ensure that required values are provided, and that the values seem reasonable and are consistent with other data. RDBMS is very flexible and allows users to examine existing data in unanticipated ways. However, not all data easily fits the predefined structure of a fixed number of fields, each in a known format.

Begin by watching the video for this Unit, which can be found in the “Explore” section of this Unit. Then, write a 500–750 word report to explain issues of storing and representing data that is difficult to structure in an RDBMS. Search and find an example, or create one in the content of the small business you proposed previously. What aspect of the data is problematic? Outline a way to validate, organize, and store that data.