Policy and Planning

Current Standards

Data Management

IT Standards and Policies
Current Standards

ITD Standard STD004-98 March 3, 1998

Strategy

Data is the raw material from which information is produced and the quality, reliability and integrity of the data must be maintained for the information to be useful. As a capital resource, information will be shared wherever possible, however, definitions of the data must be understood so that it is used consistently across the organization. Public data warehouses will be considered as a vehicle to provide access to information in an easy to use fashion. Databases should allow for the storage of multiple object types thereby enhancing the value of the data. The state will move to the use of relational database management systems because of advantages in terms of access, flexibility and ease of use. The investment in application development should be protected from changes in vendor direction by choosing when possible, database management systems that are independent of the platform and application development tools.

The standard will include several commercial database management systems designed to target specific markets. A database management system should be chosen for the application based on the following requirements:

• Size of workgroup
• Accessibility
• Security
• Ease of use
• Anticipated growth
• Business needs
• Performance
• Support and maintenance requirements
• Cost
• Size of database
• Portability
• Product stability

Policy

• ITD shall maintain a list of database management systems used by agencies.
• ITD on an annual or biennial basis, shall approve database management systems used by agencies based on the standards.
• Identification of critical data elements and the availability of such elements.
• Duplication of data should be avoided unless justified for business, technical or security proposes.
• All data shall be protected with a backup and recovery system.
• Use of a data modeling process to ensure compatibility of new data and changes with existing data and databases..
• Use of common data definition

Standards

• ODBC compliant
• ANSI SQL compliant
• Where applicable common data definition standards will be used.
• Systems development will follow specific naming conventions.

Definition: Database Management Systems

A complex set of software programs that controls the organization, storage and retrieval of data in a database for many users. It also controls the security and integrity of the data base. The DBMS accepts and processes requests for data access or manipulation and instructs the operating system to transfer the appropriate response to the requestor.

DBMS Direction

Revision Date
Approved: March 3, 1998