Information systems are created and maintained in order to manage
             vast amounts of useful data for an organization. These systems have, in
             the past, been confined to large mainframes and later to personal computer
             files. Most recently, commercial database networks have allowed databases
             to become more integrated with the web and other networks. In addition,
             shared resources can now be updated by many different users at once instead
             Within the last 5-10 years, most firms that maintain large, critical
             inventories that require minute-by-minute tracking have implemented what is
             know as Just-in-Time systems to manage the acquisition of provisions and
             the distribution of products. This has had an instrumental effect in
             reducing inventories that in the past needed to be projected months in
             advance. The technological field that refers to the management of this
             information is known as Enterprise Resource Planning, and is managed with
             the help of software such as Microsoft's SQL server and Hyperion Essbase.
             The prevailing school of thought in the field of database
             implementation is that of system development life cycles. At one point,
             all software was designed individually, usually by a lone programmer
             writing code to solve problems or automate procedures. However, as the
             scale of database and system development increased, teams of architects,
             analysts, programmers, testers and users work together to create the
             millions of lines of code that are necessary to drive databases. Many
             firms use commercially available software, but even this is customized at
             To manage the implementation of new systems, system development life
             cycle (SDLC) models were created. Some of the more popular models include
             waterfall, fountain, spiral, build and fix, rapid prototyping, incremental,
             and synchronize and stabilize. The waterfall is the oldest of these, and
             the best known. It con...