Unit I

Introduction
Introduction
Basic concepts and definitions
Data dictionary
Database
Database Systems
Data Administrator
Database Administrator
File-Oriented System Versus Database
System
Database Language.

Introduction:In todays competitive world or environment,

data
(or
information)
and
its
efficient
management is the most critical business
objective of an organisation.
Database system is a tool that simplifies the
tasks of managing the data and extracting useful
information in a timely fashion.
Database systems analyses and guides the
activities or business purposes of an organisation.
Central repository, managers are seeking to
use knowledge derived from databases

Basic concepts and Definitions:With the growing use of computers, the

organisations are fast migrating from a
manual system to a computerised
information system for which the data
within the organisation is a basic
resource.
Proper organisation and management
of data is necessary to run the
organisation efficiently.

The efficient use of data for planning,

production control, marketing, invoicing,
payroll, accounting and other function in an
organisation have a major impact for its
competitive edge.
1) Data
2) Information
3) Data Vs. Information
4) Data Warehouse
5) Metadata
6) System Catalog
7) Data Item or fields
8) Records
9) Files

Data:Data may be defined as a known fact

that can be recorded and that have implicit
meaning.
Data are raw or isolated facts from
which
the
required
information
is
produced.
Data can exist in a variety of forms that
have meaning in the users environment
such as numbers or text on a piece of
paper, bits or bytes stored in computers
memory, or as facts stored in persons

Data can also be objects such as

documents, photographic images and even
video segments.
The following are the examples of data:In salespersons view
customer-name
Customer-account
Address
Telephone numbers

In Electricity Suppliers Context

Consumer-name
Consumer-number
Address
Telephone numbers
Unit Consumed
Amount-Payable
In Employers mind
Employee-Name
Identification-number
Department
Date-0f-Birth
Qualification
Skill-Type

Data is also known as the plural of datum,

which means a single piece of information.
In practice, data is used as both-the
singular and the plural form of the word.
Data is often used to distinguish machinereadable(binary) information from humanreadable(textual) information.
Some applications make a distinction
between data files and text files. Either
numbers, or characters or both can
represent the data.

Three-Layer data architecture:To centralise the data throughout the

organisation and make them readily
available for efficient decision support
applications, data is organised in the
following layered structured:
1) Operational data
2) Reconciled data
3) Derived data
The following figure shows a three layered
structure that is generally used for data
warehousing applications.

DATA LAYER
Operational
data
Enterprise
(organizatio
n) Data
model

Reconciled
Data

Derived Data

Operational Data are stored in various

operational
systems
throughout
he
organisation (both internal and external)
system s.

Reconciled Data are stored in the

organisation data warehouse and in
operational data store. They are detailed
and current data, which is intended as the
single, authoritative source for all decision
support applications.

Derived Data are stored in each of the

data mart. They are selected, formatted
and aggregated for end-user decision
support applications.

Information:Data and information are

related
and
are
often
interchangeably.

closely
used

Information is processed, organised or

summarised data.
Information is defined as collection of
related data that when put together,
commiunicate meaningful and useful
message to a recipient who uses it, to
make decision or to interpret the data to
get the meaning.

The following diagram shows the process

of Information Cycle.
Input
(Data)

Processing

Decision

Output
(Information)

Users

Data Versus Information:Today, database may contain either data or

information (or both), according to the
organisation definition and needs.

Data Warehouse:It is a collection of data designed to

support management in the decisionmaking Process.
It is subject oriented, integrated, timevariant, non-updatable collection of data
used in support of management decisionmaking processes and business
intelligence.

It is the process, where organizations

extract meaning and inform decision
making from their informational assets
through the use of data warehouses.

Meta Data:Also called data dictionary.

It is the data about the data.
It is also called the system catalog, which
is the self-describing nature of
the
database that provides program- data
independence.
Metadata is found in documentation
describing source systems.

It is used by developers who rely on it to

help them develop the programs, queries,
controls and procedures to manage and
manipulate the warehouse data.
It is also used for creating reports and
graphs in front-end data access tools, as
well as for the management of enterprisewide data and report changes for the enduser.

Types of Metadata:There are three types of metadata.

These metadata are linked to the threelayer data structure as shown in the figure.

The following diagram shows the Metadata

layer.

DATA
Operation
LAYER
Enterprise
(organization)
Data model

al data

Meta data
Operation
layer
al
Metadata

Reconcile
d Data

EDW
Metadata

Derived
Data

Data Mart
Metadata

Operational Metadata:It describes the data in various operational

systems that feed the enterprise data
warehouse.
Operational metadata typically exist in a
number of formats and unfortunately are
often of poor quality

Enterprise Data Warehouse(EDW):They are derived from the enterprise

data model.
EDW metadata describe the reconciled
data layer as well as the rules for
transforming operational data to reconciled
data.

Data Mart Metadata:They describe the derived data layer

and the rules for transforming reconciled
data to derived data.

System Catalog:It is a repository of information

describing the data in the database, that is
the metadata(or data about data).
It is a system created database that
describes
objects,
data
dictionary
information and user access information.

It also describes table-related data such

as table name, table creators or owners,
column names, data types, data size,
foreign keys and primary keys, indexed file,
authorized users, user access privileges
and so forth.
It
is
created
by
the
database
management system and the information is
stored in system files.

Data Items or Fields:A data item is the smallest unit of data

that has meaning to its user.
It is traditionally called a field or data
element.
It is represented in the database by a
value.
Eg:- Names, telephone numbers, bill
amount, address, basic pay, gross pay, net
pay and so on.

Records:A record is a collection of logically related

fields or data items, with each field
possessing a fixed number of bytes and
having a fixed data type.
A record consists of values for each field.
The grouping of data items together form a
record.
These records are retrieved or updated
using programs.

Files:A file is a collection of related sequence of

records.
All records in a file are of the same record
type.
If every record in the file has exactly the
same size (in bytes), the file is said to be
made up of fixed length records.
If different records in the file have
different sizes, the file is said to be made of
variable-length records.

Data Dictionary:Also called Information Repositories.

They are the mini database management
systems that manage metadata.
The following diagram shows the general
structure of Data Dictionary.

Data
Dictionar
y Inputs

Data Dictionary
Maintenance

Information
about database
structure
Report
generation

Information about database use

(by programs, by users)

(Schema user
views locations)

It contains description of the database

structure and database use.
The data in the data dictionary are
maintained by several programs and
produce diverse reports on demand.
Most data dictionary systems are standalone systems, and their database is
maintained independently of the DBMS,
thereby enabling inconsistencies between
and the data dictionary.

Data Dictionary is usually a part of the

system catalog that is generated for each
database. A useful data dictionary system
usually stores and manages the following
types of information:
1) Descriptions of the schema of the
database.
2)
Detailed information on physical
database design, such as storage
structures, access paths and file and
record sizes.

3) Description of the database users, their

responsibilities and their access rights.
4) High level descriptions of the database
transactions and applications and of the
relationships of users to transactions.
5) The
relationship
between
database
transactions and the data items referenced
by them.
6) Usage statistics such as frequencies of
queries and transactions and access counts
to different portions of the database.

Considering an example of a manufacturing

company M/s ABC Motors Ltd., which has
decided to computerise its activities related
to various departments.
The manufacturing department wants to
store the details such as model no., model
description and so on.,
The personnel department want to keep the
facts such as employees number, last
name, first name and so on.,

The following figures illustrates the two

data processing (DP) files, namely Inventory
file of manufacturing department and
Employee file of personnel department.

INVENTO
MOD-NO
M ODRY
NAME

MODDESC

UNITPRICER

L-800

LEGEND

LUXURY
CAR

4000000

M-1000

MAHARAJ
A

LUXURY
CAR

3000000

C-1200

CRUZE

ZIP DRIVE 1200000

P-2000

PANTHER
A

SPORTS
RIDE

800000

R-121

ROVER

SPORTS
RIDE

2000000

EMPLOY
EMP-NO
EMPEE

LNAME

EMPFNAME

EMPSALARY

106519

MATHEW

THOMAN

4000

112233

SMITH

JOHN

4500

123456

KUMAR

RAJEEV

6000

123243

MARTIN

JOSE

3500

Though, manufacturing and employee

departments are interested in keeping
track of their inventory and employees
details respectively, the data processing
(DP) department of M/s ABC Motors Ltd.,
would be interested in tracking and
managing entities, that is the data
dictionary.
The following figures shows a sample
of data dictionary for the two files (Fields
file and Files file).

FIELDS
FILE
FIELD-NAME

FIELD-TYPE

FIELD-LENGTH

MOD-NO

CHAR

MOD-NAME

ALPHA

10

MOD-DESC

ALPHA

15

UNIT-PRICE

NUMERIC

EMP-NO

NUMERIC

EMP-LNAME

ALPHA

10

EMP-FNAME

ALPHA

15

EMP-SALARY

NUMERIC

FILES FILE
FIELDNAME

FIELD-LENGTH

INVENTORY

2000

EMPLOYEE

3000

In
the
manufacturing
departments
INVENTORY file, each row MOD-NO, MODNAME, MOD-DESC, UNIT-PRICE represents the
details of a model of car
In the personnel departments EMPLOYEE
file, each row EMP-NO, EMP-LNAME, EMPFNAME, EMP-SALARY represents the details
about an employee.

In the data dictionary, each row of the

FIELDS FILE namely FIELD-NAME, FIELDTYPE, FIELD-LENGTH, represents one of the
fields in one of the application data files,
processed
by
the
data
processing
department.
Also each row of the Files file namely
FILE-NAME, FILE-LENGTH represents one of
the application files processed by the dta
processing department.

Data dictionary also keeps track of the

relationships among the entities, which
is important in the data processing
environment as how these entities
interrelate.
The following figure shows the
links(relationships) between fields and
files.
These relationships are important for
the data processing department.

FIELDS
FIELD- FIEL
FILE
NAME D-

FIELD-LENGTH

FILES FILE

TYPE
MODNO

CHAR

FIELDNAME

FIELDLENGTH

MODNAME

ALPH
A

10

INVENTORY

2000

MODDESC

ALPH
A

15

EMPLOYEE

3000

UNITPRICE

NUME
RIC

EMPNO

NUME
RIC

EMPLNAME

ALPH
A

10

EMPFNAME

ALPH
A

15

EMPNUME
SALARY RIC

Data dictionary
showing relationships

Components of Data Dictionaries:Data dictionary contains the following

components.
Entities
Attributes
Relationships
Key

Entities:Entity is the real physical object or an

event;
Any item about which information is
stored is called entity.

Attributes:An attribute is a property or characteristic

(field) of an entity.
The following figure shows an example of
entity set and its attributes.

ENTITY SET

ATTRIBUTES

(A)INVENTORY

MOD-NO
MOD-NAME
MOD-DESC
UNIT-PRICE

(B)EMPLOYEE

EMP-NO
EMP-LNAME
EMP-FNAME
EMP-SALARY

Relationships:The associations or the ways that

different entities relate to each other is
called relationship
The relationship between any pair of
entities of a data dictionary can have value
to some part or department of the
organisation.
Some examples of common
dictionary relationship are as follows:

data

Record construction: for example, which

field appears in which records.
Security: for example, which user has
access to which file.
Impact of change: for example, which
programs might be affected by changes
to which files.
Physical residence: for example, which
files are residing in which storage device
or disk packs.

Program data requirement: for example,

which program use which file.
Responsibility: for example, which users are
responsible for updating which files.
Relationships could be of the following
types:
1) One-to-One (1:1) relationships
2) One-to-Many(1:m) relationships
3) Many-to-Many (n:m) relationships

Key:The data item or field for which a

computer uses to identify a record in a
database system is referred to as key.
Key is a single attribute or combination of
attributes of an entity set that is used to
identify one or more instances of the set.

There are various types of keys

1) Primary key
2) Concatenated key
3) Secondary Key
4) Super Key

Primary key is
identify a record.

used

to

uniquely

It is also called entity identifier.

e.g. EMP-NO, MOD-NO.
When more than one data item is used
to identify a record, it is called
concatenated key.
e.g. EMP-NO AND EMP-FNAME
MOD-NO AND MOD-TYPE.

Secondary key is used to identify all those

records, which have a certain property.
It is an attribute or combination of
attributes that may not be a concatenated
key but that classifies the entity set on a
particular characteristic.
Super key includes any
attributes that possess a
property.

number of
uniqueness

A primary key is a minimum of super key

Active and Passive Data Dictionaries:An Active data dictionary also called
integrated data dictionary is managed
automatically by the data management
software.
The Passive data dictionary also called
non-integrated data dictionary is the one
used only for documentation purposes.

DATABASE:A database is defined as a collection of

logically related data stored together that is
designed to meet the information needs of
an organisation.
It is basically an electronic filing cabinet,
which contain computerized data files.
It can contain one data file(a very small
database) or large number of data files( a
large database) depending on organisational
needs.

The names, addresses, telephone numbers

and so on, of the people we maintain in an
address book, store in the computer storage
(such as floppy or hard disk), or in excel
worksheet of Microsoft and so on, are the
examples of the database.
Since it is a collection of related data with
an implicit meaning, it is a database.

A database is designed, built and

populated with data for a specific purpose.
A database can be of any size and varying
complexity.
It may be generated and maintained
manually or it may be computerized.
A computerized database may be created
and maintained either by a
group of
application programs written specifically for
the task or by a dbms

A database consists of the following four

components
1) Data Item
2) Relationships
3) Constraints
4) Schema

DATA
ITEMS

RELATIONSHI
PS

CONSTRAIN
TS

PHYSICAL
DATABASE

COMPONENTS OF

SCHEMA

Data or data item is a distinct piece of

information.
Relationship represent a correspondence (or
communication)
between
various
data
elements.
Constraints are predicates
correct database states.

that

define

Schema describes the organisation of data

and relationships within database.

DATABASE SYSTEM:A database system also called

database management system(DBMS) is
a generalized software system for
manipulating databases.
It is basically a computerized record
keeping
system;
which
it
stores
information and allows users to add,
delete, change, retrieve and update that
information on demand.

DBMS is also a collection of programs

that enables users to create and maintain
database.
It is a general-purpose software system
that facilitates the process of defining
and manipulating for various applications.
Typically a DBMS has three basic
components as shown in the following
figure.

DATABA
SE
SYSTEM

USERS/PROGRAMMERS

APPLICATION
PROGRAM/QUERIES

DBMS
COMPONENTS

DATA DESCRIPTION
LANGUAGE(DDL)
SOFTWARE TO PROCESS
QUERIES/PROGRAMS(DML/SQL)
SOFTWARE FOR CONTROLLED
ACCESS OF STORED DATA

STORED DB
DEFINITION
(METADATA)

STORED
PHYSICAL
DATABASE

The above figure provides the following

facilities.
Data description language(DDL) allows
users to define the database, specify the
data types, and data structures, and the
constraints on the data to be stored in the
database, usually through data definition
language.
Data Manipulation language (DML) and
query facility allows users to insert, update,
delete and retrieve data from the databases.

Software for controlled access of database

provides controlled access to the database.
The database and DBMS software together is
called a database system.
A data base system overcomes the
limitations of traditional file-oriented system.

Operations
Systems

performed

on

Database

1) Inserting new data into existing data

files
2) Adding new files to the database
3) Retrieving data from existing files
4) Changing data in existing files
5) Deleting data from existing files
6) Removing existing files from the db

Data Administrator (DA):Is an identified individual person in the

organisation who has central responsibility
of controlling data.
Data are important
assets of an organisation.
A DA is the senior level person in the
organisation whose job is to decide what
data should be stored in the database and
establish policies for maintaining and
dealing with that data.

A DA decides the content of the database at

an abstract level.
This process performed by DA is known
as Logical or conceptual database design.
DAs are the manager and need not be a
technical person, however, knowledge of
information technology helps them in an
overall understanding and appreciation of
the system.

DATABASE ADMINISTRATOR (DBA):He is an individual person or group of

persons with an overview of one or more
databases who controls the design and the
use of these databases.
He provides the necessary technical
support for implementing policy decisions of
databases.
DBA is responsible for the overall control
of the system at technical level and unlike a
DA, who is an IT Professional.

FUNCTIONS AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF

DBAs
1) Defining Conceptual Schema and database
Schema.
2) Storage Structure
definition.

and

access-method

3) Granting authorization to the users

4) Physical organisation modification.
5) Routine maintenance
6) Job monitoring

FILE ORIENTED SYSTEM

VS. DATABASE SYSTEM