Chapter 1: Introduction
Data and Database
Data is a collection of a distinct small unit of information. It can
be used in a variety of forms like text, numbers, media, bytes,
etc. it can be stored in pieces of paper or electronic memory,
etc.
A database is an organized collection of data, so that it can be
easily accessed and managed.
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
Database Applications:
Banking: 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
Databases can be very large.
Databases touch all aspects of our lives
University Database Example
Application program examples
Add new students, instructors, and courses
Register students for courses, and generate class rosters
Assign grades to students, compute grade point averages (GPA) and
generate transcripts
In the early days, database applications were built directly on top of file
systems
Advantage of DBMS
Controls redundancy
It stores all the data in a single database file, so it can control data redundancy.
Data sharing
An authorized user can share the data among multiple users.
Backup
It provides Backup and recovery subsystem. This recovery system creates
automatic data from system failure and restores data if required.
Multiple user interfaces
It provides a different type of user interfaces like GUI, application interfaces.
Drawbacks of using file systems to store
data
Data redundancy and inconsistency
Multiple file formats, duplication of information in different
files
Difficulty in accessing data
Need to write a new program to carry out each new task
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
Size
It occupies large disk space and large memory to run efficiently.
Cost
DBMS requires a high-speed data processor and larger memory to run DBMS software, so it is
costly.
Complexity
DBMS creates additional complexity and requirements.
Drawbacks of using file systems to store data
(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 access needed for performance
Uncontrolled concurrent accesses can lead to inconsistencies
– Example: Two people reading a balance (say 100) and
updating it by withdrawing money (say 50 each) 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 instructor = record
ID : string;
name : string;
dept_name : string;
salary : integer;
end;
View level: application programs hide details of data
types. Views can also hide information (such as an
employee’s 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
Instance – the actual content of the database at a particular point
in time
Analogous to the value of a variable
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
Relational Model
Relational model (Chapter 2)
Columns
Example of tabular data in the relational model
Rows
A Sample Relational Database
Data Manipulation Language (DML)
Language for accessing and manipulating the data
organized by the appropriate data model
DML also known as query language
Two classes of languages
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
SQL is the most widely used query language
Data Definition Language (DDL)
Specification notation for defining the database schema
Example: create table instructor (
ID char(5),
name varchar(20),
dept_name varchar(20),
salary numeric(8,2))
DDL compiler generates a set of table templates stored in a
data dictionary
Data dictionary contains metadata (i.e., data about data)
Database schema
Integrity constraints
Primary key (ID uniquely identifies instructors)
Referential integrity (references constraint in SQL)
– e.g. dept_name value in any instructor tuple must
appear in department relation
Authorization
SQL
SQL: widely used non-procedural language
Example: Find the name of the instructor with ID 22222
select name
from instructor
where instructor.ID = ‘22222’
Example: Find the ID and building of instructors in the
Physics dept.
select instructor.ID, department.building
from instructor, department
where instructor.dept_name = department.dept_name and
department.dept_name = ‘Physics’
Application programs generally access databases through one of
Language extensions to allow embedded SQL
Application program interface (e.g., ODBC/JDBC) which allow
SQL queries to be sent to a database
Chapters 3, 4 and 5
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
Database Design?
Is there any problem with this design?
Design Approaches
Normalization Theory (Chapter 8)
Formalize what designs are bad, and test for them
Entity Relationship Model (Chapter 7)
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:
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:
What happened to dept_name of instructor and student?
Object-Relational Data Models
Relational model: flat, “atomic” values
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
Issues:
Storage access
File organization
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
What if the system fails?
What if more than one user is concurrently updating the
same data?
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 Users and Administrators
Databas
e
Database System Internals
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
History of Database Systems
1950s and early 1960s:
Data processing using magnetic tapes for storage
Tapes provided only sequential access
Punched cards for input
Late 1960s and 1970s:
Hard disks allowed direct access to data
Network and hierarchical data models in widespread
use
Ted Codd defines the relational data model
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
1990s:
Large decision support and data-mining applications
Large multi-terabyte data warehouses
Emergence of Web commerce
Early 2000s:
XML and XQuery standards
Automated database administration
Later 2000s:
Giant data storage systems
Google BigTable, Yahoo PNuts, Amazon, ..
End of Chapter 1
Figure 1.02
Figure 1.04
Figure 1.06
