Chapter 1: Introduction

Purpose of Database Systems View of Data Database Languages Relational Databases Database Design Object-based and semistructured databases Data Storage and Querying Transaction Management Database Architecture Database Users and Administrators Overall Structure History of Database Systems

Database Management System (DBMS)

DBMS contains information about a particular enterprise

Collection of interrelated data Set of programs to access the data An environment that is both convenient and efficient to use Banking: all transactions Airlines: reservations, schedules Universities: registration, grades Sales: customers, products, purchases Online retailers: order tracking, customized recommendations Manufacturing: production, inventory, orders, supply chain Human resources: employee records, salaries, tax deductions

Database Applications:

Databases touch all aspects of our lives

Purpose of Database Systems

In the early days, database applications were built directly on top of

file systems
Drawbacks of using file systems to store data:

Data redundancy and inconsistency

Multiple file formats, duplication of information in different files Need to write a new program to carry out each new task

Difficulty in accessing data

Data isolation multiple files and formats Integrity problems

Integrity constraints (e.g. account balance > 0) become buried in program code rather than being stated explicitly
Hard to add new constraints or change existing ones

Purpose of Database Systems (Cont.)

Drawbacks of using file systems (cont.)

Atomicity of updates Failures may leave database in an inconsistent state with partial updates carried out Example: Transfer of funds from one account to another should either complete or not happen at all Concurrent access by multiple users Concurrent accessed needed for performance Uncontrolled concurrent accesses can lead to inconsistencies Example: Two people reading a balance and updating it at the same time Security problems Hard to provide user access to some, but not all, data Database systems offer solutions to all the above problems

Levels of Abstraction
Physical level: describes how a record (e.g., customer) is stored.

Logical level: describes data stored in database, and the relationships

among the data. type customer = record customer_id : string; customer_name : string; customer_street : string; customer_city : integer; end;
View level: application programs hide details of data types. Views can

also hide information (such as an employees salary) for security purposes.

View of Data
An architecture for a database system

Instances and Schemas

Similar to types and variables in programming languages

Schema the logical structure of the database

Example: The database consists of information about a set of customers and accounts and the relationship between them) Analogous to type information of a variable in a program Physical schema: database design at the physical level Logical schema: database design at the logical level Analogous to the value of a variable

Instance the actual content of the database at a particular point in time

Physical Data Independence the ability to modify the physical schema without changing the logical schema

Applications depend on the logical schema In general, the interfaces between the various levels and components should be well defined so that changes in some parts do not seriously influence others.

Data Models
A collection of tools for describing

Data Data relationships Data semantics Data constraints

Relational model

Entity-Relationship data model (mainly for database design)

Object-based data models (Object-oriented and Object-relational) Semistructured data model (XML) Other older models:

Network model Hierarchical model

Data Manipulation Language (DML)

Language for accessing and manipulating the data organized by the

appropriate data model

DML also known as query language Procedural user specifies what data is required and how to get those data Declarative (nonprocedural) user specifies what data is required without specifying how to get those data

Two classes of languages

SQL is the most widely used query language

Data Definition Language (DDL)

Specification notation for defining the database schema

Example:

create table account ( account-number balance

char(10), integer)

DDL compiler generates a set of tables stored in a data dictionary Data dictionary contains metadata (i.e., data about data)

Database schema Data storage and definition language Specifies the storage structure and access methods used

Integrity constraints Domain constraints Referential integrity (references constraint in SQL) Assertions

Authorization

Relational Model
Attributes

Example of tabular data in the relational model

A Sample Relational Database

SQL
SQL: widely used non-procedural language

Example: Find the name of the customer with customer-id 192-83-7465 select customer.customer_name from customer where customer.customer_id = 192-83-7465
Example: Find the balances of all accounts held by the customer with customer-id 192-83-7465 select account.balance from depositor, account where depositor.customer_id = 192-83-7465 and depositor.account_number = account.account_number Language extensions to allow embedded SQL Application program interface (e.g., ODBC/JDBC) which allow SQL queries to be sent to a database

Application programs generally access databases through one of

Database Design
The process of designing the general structure of the database:
Logical Design Deciding on the database schema. Database design

requires that we find a good collection of relation schemas.

Business decision What attributes should we record in the database? Computer Science decision What relation schemas should we have and how should the attributes be distributed among the various relation schemas?

Physical Design Deciding on the physical layout of the database

The Entity-Relationship Model

Models an enterprise as a collection of entities and relationships

Entity: a thing or object in the enterprise that is distinguishable from other objects

Described by a set of attributes

Relationship: an association among several entities

Represented diagrammatically by an entity-relationship diagram:

Object-Relational Data Models

Extend the relational data model by including object orientation and

constructs to deal with added data types.

Allow attributes of tuples to have complex types, including non-atomic

values such as nested relations.

Preserve relational foundations, in particular the declarative access to

data, while extending modeling power.

Provide upward compatibility with existing relational languages.

XML: Extensible Markup Language

Defined by the WWW Consortium (W3C)

Originally intended as a document markup language not a

database language
The ability to specify new tags, and to create nested tag structures

made XML a great way to exchange data, not just documents

XML has become the basis for all new generation data interchange

formats.
A wide variety of tools is available for parsing, browsing and

querying XML documents/data

Storage Management
Storage manager is a program module that provides the interface

between the low-level data stored in the database and the application programs and queries submitted to the system.
The storage manager is responsible to the following tasks:

Interaction with the file manager

Efficient storing, retrieving and updating of data

Storage access File organization

Issues:

Indexing and hashing

Query Processing
1. Parsing and translation 2. Optimization 3. Evaluation

Query Processing (Cont.)

Alternative ways of evaluating a given query

Equivalent expressions
Different algorithms for each operation

Cost difference between a good and a bad way of evaluating a query can

be enormous
Need to estimate the cost of operations

Depends critically on statistical information about relations which the database must maintain Need to estimate statistics for intermediate results to compute cost of complex expressions

Transaction Management
A transaction is a collection of operations that performs a single

logical function in a database application

Transaction-management component ensures that the database

remains in a consistent (correct) state despite system failures (e.g., power failures and operating system crashes) and transaction failures.
Concurrency-control manager controls the interaction among the

concurrent transactions, to ensure the consistency of the database.

Database Architecture
The architecture of a database systems is greatly influenced by the underlying computer system on which the database is running:
Centralized / Client-server Parallel (multi-processor) Distributed

Database Users
Users are differentiated by the way they expect to interact with the system
Application programmers interact with system through DML calls Sophisticated users form requests in a database query language Specialized users write specialized database applications that do

not fit into the traditional data processing framework

Nave users invoke one of the permanent application programs that

have been written previously

Examples, people accessing database over the web, bank tellers, clerical staff

Database Administrator

Coordinates all the activities of the database system; the database administrator has a good understanding of the enterprises information resources and needs.
Database administrator's duties include:

Schema definition
Storage structure and access method definition Schema and physical organization modification Granting user authority to access the database Specifying integrity constraints Acting as liaison with users Monitoring performance and responding to changes in requirements

Overall System Structure

History of Database Systems

1950s and early 1960s:

Data processing using magnetic tapes for storage

Tapes provide only sequential access

Punched cards for input Hard disks allow direct access to data Network and hierarchical data models in widespread use Ted Codd defines the relational data model

Late 1960s and 1970s:

Would win the ACM Turing Award for this work IBM Research begins System R prototype UC Berkeley begins Ingres prototype

High-performance (for the era) transaction processing

History (cont.)
1980s:

Research relational prototypes evolve into commercial systems

SQL becomes industrial standard

Parallel and distributed database systems Object-oriented database systems Large decision support and data-mining applications Large multi-terabyte data warehouses Emergence of Web commerce XML and XQuery standards Automated database administration

1990s:

2000s:

End of Chapter 1

Figure 1.4

Figure 1.7