OpenStax-CNX module: m28156

Database Systems Concepts

Nguyen Kim Anh

This work is produced by OpenStax-CNX and licensed under the

Creative Commons Attribution License 3.0

Abstract
This module introduces the fundamental concepts of database systems

1 Before the advent of Database systems

One way to keep the information on a computer is to store it in the permanent les. The system has a
number of application programs, each of them is dened to manipulate the data les. These application
programs have been written on request of the users in the organization. New application will be added to
the system as the need arises. The system just described is called the le-based system.
Consider a traditional banking system which using the le-based system in managing the organization's
data in the picture below. As we can see, there are dierent departments in the Bank, each of them have
their own applications which manage and manipulate dierents data les. For Banking system, the programs
can be the one to debit or credit an account, , nd the balance of an account, add a new mortgage loan or
generate monthly statements etc.
Version

1.1: Jul 8, 2009 1:18 am -0500

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Figure 1:

File-based approach for banking system

Keeping organizational information in this approach has a number of disadvantages, including :

Data Redundancy: Since les and applications are created by dierent programmer of various departments over long period of time, it might lead to several problems:
Inconsistency in data format
The same information may be kept in several dierent place (les).
Data inconsistency which means various copies of the same data are conicting ; waste storage
space and duplication of eort
Data Isolation
It is dicult for new application to retrieve the appropriate data which might be stored in various
les.
Integrity problems
Data values must satisfy certain consistency contraints which are specied in the application
programs.
It is dicult to add change the programs to enforce new constraint
Security problems
There are constraint regarding accessing privileges
Application is added to the system in the ad-hoc manner so it is dicult to enforce those constraints
Concurrent  access anomalies

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Data may be accessed by many applications that have not been coordinated previously so it is
not easy to provide a stategy to support multiple users to update data simutaneously
These diculties have prompted the development of a new approach in managing large amount of organizational information  database approach. In the following section, we shall see the concepts that have been
introduced to get over the problems mentioned.

2 Database Approach
Database and database technology play an important role in most of social areas where computer are used,
including business, education, medicine etc. To understand the fundamental of database system, we start
from introducing the basic concepts in this area.

2.1 Fundamental Concepts

Database is a shared collection of related data which will be used to support the activities of particular
organization. Database can be viewed as a repository of data that is dened once and then is accessed by
various users. A database has the following properties:

It is a representation of some aspect of the real world; or perhaps, a collection of data elements (facts)
representing realworld information.
Database is logical coherent and internally consistent.
Database is designed, built, and populated with data for a specic purpose.
Database Management System (DBMS) is a collection of programs that enable users to create, maintain
database and control all the access to the database. The primary goal of the DBMS is to provide an
environment that is both convenient and ecient for user to retrive and store information.
Application program accesses the data stored in the database by sending requests to the DBMS.

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Figure 2:

The components of a database system

With the database approach, we can have the traditional banking system as shown in the following
picture.

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Figure 3:

Database approach for banking system

2.2 Characteristics of Database approach

There are a number of characteristics that distinguish the database approach with the le-based approach.
In this section, we describe in detail some of those important characteristics.
1. Self-Describing Nature of a Database System : Database System contains not only the database itself
but also the descriptions of data structure and constraints (meta-data). These information is used
by the DBMS software or database users if needed. This seperation makes database system totally
dierent from traditional le-based sytem in which data denition is a part of application programs
2. Insulation between Program and Data : In the led base sytem, the structure of the data les is dened
in the application programs so if user want to change the structure of a le, all the programs access
to that les might need to be changed. On the other hand, in database approach, data structure is
stored in the system catalog not in the programs so such changes might not occurs.
3. Support multiple views of data: A view is a subset of the database which is dened and dedicated for
particular users of the system. Multiple users in the system might have dierent views of the system.
Each view might contains only the interested data of an user or a group of user.
4. Sharing of data and Multiuser system: A multiuser database system must allow multiple users access
the database at the same time. As the result, the multiuser DBMS must have concurrency control
strategies to ensure that several user try to access the same data item at a time do so in the manner
so that the data always be correct.

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2.3 Benets of Database Approach

1. To control Data Redundancy

In the Database approach, ideally each data item is stored in only one place in the database
However, in some case redundancy is still exists to improving system performance, but such
redundancy is controlled and kept to minimum
2. Data Sharing

The integration of the whole data in an organization leads to the ability to produce more information from a given amount of data
3. Enforcing Integrity Constraints

DBMSs should provide capabilities to dene and enforce certain constraints such as data type,
data uniqueness.
4. Restricting Unauthorised Access

Not all users of the system have the same accessing privileges.
DBMSs should provide a security subsystem to create and control the user accounts.
5. Data Independence

The system data descriptions are separated from the application programs.
Changes to the data structure is handled by the DBMS and not embedded in the program.
6. Transaction Processing

The DBMS must include concurrency control subsystem to ensure that several users trying to
update the same data do so in a controlled manner so that the result of the updates is correct.
7. Providing multiple views of data

A view may be a subset of the database. Various users may have dierent views of the database
itself.
Users may not need to be aware of how and where the data they refer to is stored
8. Providing backup and recovery facilities

If the computer system fails in the middle of a complex update program, the recovery subsystem is
responsible for making sure that the database is restored to the stage it was in before the program
started executing.

2.4 Data Models, Schemas and Instances

Data Model is a collection of concepts that can be used to describe the structure of database. Structure
of database means data types, relationships and constraints. In addition, most data model include a set of
basic operations for specifying retrievals and modications on the database. Data Model provides a means
to achieve Data Abstraction. Data Abstraction is refers to the hiding of certain details of how the data are
stored and maintained. With several levels of abstraction, the user's view of the database is simplied and
this leads to the improved understanding of data.
There are three levels of abstractions:
1. View level: The highest level of abstraction describes only part of the entire database. Many users will
not be concerned with the large database. Instead, they need to access only a part of it so that view
level abstraction is dened. There are many views for the same database.
2. Logical level: This level describes what data are stored in the whole database.
3. Physical level: The lowest level of abstraction describes how the data are actually stored.

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2.4.1 Categories of Data Model

High-level Conceptual Data models: Provide concepts that are close to the way people perceive data to
present the data. Typical example of this type is entity  relationship model which use main concepts
like entities, attributes, relationships. An entity represents real-world object such as an employee,
a project. An entity has some attributes which represents properties of entity such as employee's
name, address, birthdate. A relationship represents association among entities for example a works on
relationships between employee and project.
Record-based Logical Data models: Provide concepts that can be understood by the user but not
too far from the way data is stored in the computer. Three well-known data models of this type are
relational data model, network data model and hierarchical data model.
The Relational model represents data as relations. Here is an example of relational schema for
the SUPERMARKET database
EMPS (ENAME, SALARY)

MANAGERS (ENAME)

DEPTS (DNAME, DEPT#)

SUPPLIERS (SNAME, SADDR)

ITEMS (INAME, ITEM#)

ORDERS (O#, DATE)

WORKS_IN (ENAME, DNAME)

MANAGES (ENAME, DNAME)

CARRIES (INAME, DNAME)

PLACED_BY (O#, CNAME)

CUSTOMERS(CNAME,CADDR,BALANCE)

INCLUDES (O#, INAME, QUANTITY)

SUPPLIES (SNAME, INAME, PRICES)

Table 1
The Network model represents data as record types and also represents a limited type of one to
many relationship, called set type. The gure below shows a schema in network model notation

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Figure 4:

Sample schema in network model

The Hierarchical model represent data as hierarchical tree structures. Each hierarchy represents
a number of related records. Here is the schema in hierarchical model notation.

Figure 5:

Sample schema in hierarchical model notation

Physical Data models: Provide concepts that describe how data is actually stored in the computer.

2.4.2 Database Instances and Schemas

The description of the database which is designed in the early stage and is not expected to change frequently
is called the database schema. Database system have severals schemas.
Since information can be inserted to or deleted from database at anytime, database changes over time.
At a particular moment, the collection of information stored in the database is called an instance of the
database.

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2.5 ANSI/SPARC Architecture (Three level Architecture)

Three  level architecture for database system is proposed to archive the characteristics of the database
approach. The goal of this architecture is separate the applications and the physical database so the actual
details of how data is organized are hided from the users.

Figure 6:

Three- level Architecture

As we can see from above picture, there are three levels of schemas in the database architecture
External level:

In this highest level, there exists a number of views which of is dened a part of the actual database.
Each view is provided for a user or a group of users so that it helps in simplied the interaction between
the user and system.
Conceptual level: Conceptual Schema in this level describes the logical structure of the whole database.

The entire database is described using simple logical concepts such as objects, their properties or
relationships. Thus the complexity of the implementation detail of the data with be hided from the
users.

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Internal level: Internal Schema in this level describes how the data are actually stored, how to access
the data.

2.6 Data Independence

Data Independence is the ability to modify the schema in one level without aecting the schema in the higher
level.
There are two levels of data independence:

Logical data independence is the ability to make change in the conceptual schema without causing a
modify in the user views or application program.
Physical data independence is the ability to make change in the internal schema without causing a
modify in the conceptual schema or application program.
Physical data independence seem to be easier to achieve since the way the data is organized in the memory
aect only the performance of the system. Meanwhile, the application program depends much on the logical
structure of the data that they are access.

2.7 Database Language

Data Denition Language (DDL): This is used to dene the conceptual and internal schemas for a database
system.

It is not procedural language, rather a language for describing the types of entities and relationships
among them in terms of a particular data model.
Data Manipulation Language (DML): This is used to manipulate the database, which typically include
retrieval, insertion, deletion, and modication of the data.

2.8 Database Users

2.8.1 End users
People whose jobs require access to database for querying, updating and generating report.
An end users might by one of the following

Nave users who use the existing appication programs to perform their daily tasks
Sophiticated users are who use their own way to access to the database. This mean they donot use
the application program provided in the system. In stead, they might dene their own application or
describe their need directly in a query languages.
Specialized users maintain the personal database by using ready make program packages that provide
easy-to-use menu.

2.8.2 Application Programmer

People implement specic application program to access to the stored data. This kind of user need to familiar
with the DBMSs to accomplish their task.

2.8.3 Database Administrators

A person or a group of people in the organization who is responsible for authorizing the access to the
database, monitoring its use and managing all the resource to support the use of the whole database system
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2.9 Classication of Database Systems

The database management systems can be classied based on several criteria.

Based on data model: The most popular data model in today commercial DBMSs is relational data
model. Almost wellknown DBMSs like Oracle, MS SQL Server, DB2, MySQL are support this model.
Other traditional models can be named hierarchical data model , network data model. In the recent
year, we are getting familiar with object-oriented data model but this model has not had widespread
use. Some examples of Object-oriented DBMSs are O2, ObjectStore or Jasmine.
Based on number users we can have single user database system which support one user at a time or
multiuser syste,s which support multiple users concurrently
Based on the ways database is distributed we have centralized or distributed database system
Centralized database system : Data in this kind of system is stored at a single site.
Distributed database sytem: Actual database and DBMS software are distributed in various sites
connected by a computer network.
* Homogeneous distributed Database Systems
Use the same DBMS software at multiple sites
Data exchange between various sites can be handle easily
* Heterogeneous distributed Database Systems
Dierent sites might use dierents DBMS softwares
There is a software to support data exchange between sites

Figure 7:

Centralized Database System

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Figure 8:

Distributed Database System

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