Bonadio Electrical Supplies distributes electrical components tothe construction industry. The company began as a local supplier 15yrs ago and has grown rapidly to become a major competitor in theNorth central U.S. As the business grew and variety of componentsto be stocked expanded, Bonadio acquired a computer and implementedan inventory control system. Other applications such as accountsreceivable, account payable, payroll, and sale analysis weregradually computerized as each function expanded. Because of itsoperational importance, the inventory system has been upgraded toan online system, while all the other applications are operating inbatch mode. Over the years, the company has developed or acquiredmore than 100 application programs and maintains hundreds of files.Bonadio faces stiff competition from local suppliers throughout itsmarketing area. At a management meeting, the sales managercomplained about the difficulty obtaining immediate, currentinformation to respond to customer inquiries. Other managers statesthat they also had difficulty obtaining timely data from thesystem. As the result, the controller engaged a consulting firm toexplore the situation. The consultant recommended installing adatabase management system (DBSM), and the company complied,employing Jack Gibbons as the database administrator.

At a recent management meeting, Gibbons presented an overview ofthe DBMS. Gibbons explained that the databases approach assumes anorganizational, data oriented viewpoint as it recognizes that acentralized database represents a vital resource. Instead of beingassigned to applications, information is more appropriately usedand managed for the entire organization. The operating systemphysically moves data to and from disk storage, while the DBMS isthe software program that controls the data definition library thatspecifies the data structures and characteristics. As the result.both the roles of the application programs and query software andthe tasks of the application programers and users are simplified.Under the database approach, the data are available to all userswithin security guidelines.

a. Explain the basic difference between a file-oriented systemand database management system.

b. Describe at least 3 advantages and at least 3 disadvantagesof the database management system.

c. Describe the duties and responsibilities of Jack Gibbons, thedatabase administrator. (CMA Adapted)