Chapter 1

ICT 2073
Prepare by : Ms. Siti Hajar Binti Ismail
Learning Objective
 Define Database Management System (DBMS) and
database

 Describe the advantages and disadvantages of DBMS

to file based system.

 Analyses structure models in Database

Definitions
Database:

 A very large, integrated collection of data.

 Models real-world enterprise.

 Entities (e.g., students, courses)

 Relationships (e.g., Madonna is taking CS564)

Database Management System (DBMS)

 a software package designed to store and manage databases.

 Examples of Database Applications:

• Banking: all transactions

• Airlines: reservations, schedules

• Universities: registration, grades

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

 Difficulty in accessing data

 Need to write a new program to carry out each new task

 Data isolation — multiple files and formats

 Drawbacks of using file systems (cont.)

 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

 Atomicity of updates

 Failures may leave database in an inconsistent state with

partial updates carried out

 E.g. 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

 E.g. two people reading a balance and updating it at the

same time

 Security problems

 Database systems offer solutions to all the above problems

Why Use a DBMS?
 Separation of the Data definition and the Program

 Abstraction into a simple model

 Data independence and efficient access.

 Reduced application development time – ad-hoc queries

 Data integrity and security.

 Uniform data administration.

 Concurrent access, recovery from crashes.

 Support for multiple different views

 ?
Why Study Databases??
 Shift from computation to information

 at the “low end”: scramble to webspace (a mess!)

 at the “high end”: scientific applications

 Datasets increasing in diversity and volume.

 Digital libraries, interactive video, Human Genome project, EOS

project

 ... need for DBMS exploding

 DBMS encompasses most of CS

 OS, languages, theory, “AI”, multimedia, logic

Levels of Abstraction
 Many views, single conceptual
(logical) schema and physical
schema. View 1 View 2 View 3
 Views describe how users see
the data.
Conceptual Schema
 Conceptual schema defines Physical Schema
logical structure. Sometime we
separate between conceptual
level and logical level

 Physical schema describes the

files and indexes used.

* Schemas are defined using DDL (Data Definition Language)

*data is modified/queried using DML (Data Manipulation Language)
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 : string;

end;

 View level: application programs hide details of data types. Views can
also hide information (such as an employee’s salary) for security
purposes.
Instances and Schemas
 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
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 account (

account_number char(10),

branch_name char(10),

balance 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 (e.g. branch_name must correspond to a

valid branch in the branch table)

 Authorization
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’

 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

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:

Other Data Models
 Object-oriented data model
 Object-relational data model
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
 Naïve users – invoke one of the permanent application programs that
have been written previously
 E.g. 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
enterprise’s 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

Database Management System
Internals
 Storage management

 Query processing

 Transaction processing
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

 Concurrency Control
 Concurrent execution of user programs is essential for good DBMS
performance.
 Because disk accesses are frequent, and relatively slow, it is
important to keep the cpu humming by working on several user
programs concurrently.
 Interleaving actions of different user programs can lead to
inconsistency: e.g., check is cleared while account balance is being
computed.
 DBMS ensures such problems don’t arise: users can pretend they
are using a single-user system.
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.
History of Database Systems
 1950s and early 1960s:

 Data processing using magnetic tapes for storage

 Tapes provide only sequential access

 Punched cards for input

 Late 1960s and 1970s:

 Hard disks allow 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 industry 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

 2000s:

 XML and XQuery standards

 Automated database administration

 Increasing use of highly parallel database systems

 Web-scale distributed data storage systems

Learning outcome
 Differentiate between Database Management System
(DBMS) and database

 Briefly explain advantages and disadvantages of DBMS

to file based system.

 Discuss Database Models

 Summary
 DBMS used to maintain, query large datasets.

 Benefits include recovery from system crashes, concurrent access,

quick application development, data integrity and security.

 Levels of abstraction give data independence.

 A DBMS typically has a layered architecture.

 DBAs hold responsible jobs and are well-paid!

 DBMS R&D is one of the broadest,

most exciting areas in CS.

 Advanced databases course at the graduate level