CISA Domain 3 – Information Systems Acquisition, development and implementation – Part 8

PART 8 – CISA Domain 3 – Information Systems Acquisition, development and implementation

What is data integrity testing?
What are the types of data integrity testing?
- Relational integrity testing
- Referential integrity testing
What are the four online data integrity requirements?
- Atomicity
- Consistency
- Isolation
- Durability

1. Data integrity testing:

Data integrity testing is a set of substantive tests that examines accuracy, completeness, consistency and authorization of data presently held in a system

Two common types of data integrity tests are
- Relational Integrity tests – Relational integrity tests are performed at the data element and record-based levels.
- Referential integrity tests – tests whether the table relationships are consistent. In other words, any foreign key field must agree with the primary key that is referenced by the foreign key.

Points to remember: Referential integrity – will prevent dangling tuples in a database

2. Data Integrity in Online Transaction Processing Systems:

The four online data integrity requirements known collectively as the ACID principle, which are as follows:
- Atomicity – From a user perspective, a transaction is either completed in its entirety or not at all. If an error or interruption occurs, all changes made up to that point are backed out.
- Consistency – All integrity conditions in the database are maintained with each transaction, taking the database from one consistent state into another consistent state.
- Isolation – Each transaction is isolated from other transactions, and hence, each transaction only accesses data that are part of a consistent database state.
- Durability – If a transaction has been reported back to a user as complete, the resulting changes to the database survive subsequent hardware or software failures.

Points to remember: In an online transaction processing system, data integrity is maintained by ensuring that a transaction is either completed in its entirety or not at all. This principle of data integrity is known as – Atomicity

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9

AUTHOR
Aswini Srinath ()
Writer And Editor

“ I am a qualified Chartered Accountant based out of Chennai, with 8+ years of experience in various roles in finance domain including CA Practice, financial reporting and auditing. I have always been keen to challenge myself by exploring potential capabilities outside of my core competency. Picked up Information Security as one such thing. Cleared CISA with 2nd Rank in ISACA Chennai Chapter in 2019. Since then, i have been sharing my learning and experience to a small group of avid followers, helping them prepare for their CISA exams. This article is also one such attempt, where I summarize the key areas in each domain based on the importance and weightage from an exam point of view. “