CSF212 DATABASE SYSTEMS

BITS Pilani Jayalakshmi N

Pilani Campus Guest Faculty (Off-Campus) Computer Science
M1 - Introduction and Overview of
Database Systems

•Introduction to Database Management System

•Characteristics of database approach
•Database users
•Advantages of using DBMS
•Data Models , Schema,Instances and DataBase State
•Three – Schema Architecture and Data Independence
•DataBase System Environment
•DBMS Architecture

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 Data and Database

• A database is a collection of related data.

• By data, we mean known facts that can be recorded and that
have implicit meaning.
• For example, consider the names, telephone numbers, and
addresses of people.
• A database represents some aspect of the real world, sometimes
called the miniworld or the universe of discourse (UoD).
• A database is a logically coherent collection of data with some
inherent meaning.
• A database is designed, built, and populated with data for a
specific purpose.

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DataBase Management Systems

• A DataBase Management System (DBMS) is a collection of

programs that enables users to create and maintain a database.
• The DBMS is a general-purpose software system that facilitates
the processes of defining, constructing, manipulating, and
sharing databases among various users and applications.
• Defining a database involves specifying the data types,
structures, and constraints of the data to be stored in the
database.
The database definition or descriptive information is also
stored by the DBMS in the form of a database catalog or
dictionary; it is called meta-data.
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DataBase Management Systems

• Constructing the database is the process of

storing the data on some storage medium that is
controlled by the DBMS.
• Manipulating a database includes functions such
as querying the database to retrieve specific
data, updating the database to reflect changes in
the miniworld, and generating reports from the
data.
• Sharing a database allows multiple users and
programs to access the database simultaneously.
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DataBase System

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Characteristics of DataBase System

• Self-describing nature of a database system

• Insulation between programs and data, and
data abstraction
• Support of multiple views of the data
• Sharing of data and multiuser transaction
processing

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DataBase Users

DataBase Administrators
•In a database environment, the primary resource is the
database itself, and the secondary resource is the
DBMS and related software.
• Administering these resources is the responsibility of
the DataBase Administrator (DBA).
•The DBA is responsible for authorizing access to the
database, coordinating and monitoring its use, and
acquiring software and hardware resources as needed.
•The DBA is accountable for problems such as security
breaches and poor system response time.

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DataBase Users

Database designers
•They are responsible for identifying the data to be stored in the
database and for choosing appropriate structures to represent
and store this data.
• These tasks are mostly undertaken before the database is
actually implemented and populated with data.
•It is the responsibility of database designers to communicate
with all prospective database users in order to understand their
requirements and to create a design that meets these
requirements.
• In many cases, the designers are on the staff of the DBA and
may be assigned other staff responsibilities after the database
design is completed. 9
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DataBase Users

End Users
•Casual end users occasionally access the database, but they
may need different information each time. They use a
sophisticated database query language to specify their
requests and are typically middle- or high-level managers or
other occasional browsers.
•Naive or parametric end users make up a sizable portion of
database end users. Their main job function revolves
around constantly querying and updating the database,
using standard types of queries and updates—called
canned transactions—that have been carefully
programmed and tested.
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DataBase Users

End Users
•Sophisticated end users include engineers, scientists,
business analysts, and others who thoroughly familiarize
themselves with the facilities of the DBMS in order to
implement their own applications to meet their complex
requirements.

•Standalone users maintain personal databases by using

ready-made program packages that provide easy-to-use
menu-based or graphics-based interfaces.

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DataBase Users

System analysts
•System Analysts determine the requirements of end users,
especially naive and parametric end users, and develop
specifications for standard canned transactions that meet
these requirements.
•Application programmers implement these specifications as
programs; then they test, debug, document, and maintain
these canned transactions.
•Such analysts and programmers—commonly referred to as
software developers or software engineers—should be
familiar with the full range of capabilities provided by the
DBMS to accomplish their tasks.
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Advantages of a DBMS

• Controlling Redundancy
• Restricting Unauthorized Access
• Providing Persistant Storage for Program Objects
• Efficient Storage Structure and Query Processing
• Providing Multiple User Interfaces
• Representing Complex Relationships among Data
• Enforcing Integrity Constraints
• Permitting Inferencing and Actions Using Rules

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Disadvantages of using DBMS
• High initial investment in hardware, software, and training.
• The generality that a DBMS provides for defining and processing
data.
• Overhead for providing security, concurrency control, recovery,
and integrity functions.
Advantages of Traditional File System
• Simple, well-defined database applications that are not expected
to change at all.
• Stringent, real-time requirements for some application programs
that may not be met because of DBMS overhead.
• Embedded systems with limited storage capacity, where a
general-purpose DBMS would not fit.
• No multiple-user access to data.
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Data Models

• Data abstraction generally refers to the suppression of

details of data organization and storage, and the
highlighting of the essential features for an improved
understanding of data.
• Data model—a collection of concepts that can be used
to describe the structure of a database—provides the
necessary means to achieve this abstraction.
By structure of a database we mean the data types,
relationships, and constraints that apply to the data .
Most data models also include a set of basic operations
for specifying retrievals and updates on the database.
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Categories of Data Models
• High-level or conceptual data models provide concepts
that are close to the way many users perceive data;
• Low-level or physical data models provide concepts that
describe the details of how data is stored on the
computer storage media, typically magnetic disks.
Concepts provided by low-level data models are
generally meant for computer specialists, not for end
users.
• Between these two extremes is a class of
representational(or implementation)data models,which
provide concepts that may be easily understood by end
users but that are not too far removed from the way data
is organized in computer storage. 16
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Categories of Data Models

• Conceptual data models use concepts such as entities,

attributes, and relationships.
• An entity represents a real-world object or concept,
such as an employee or a project from the miniworld
that is described in the database.
• An attribute represents some property of interest that
further describes an entity, such as the employee’s
name or salary.
• A relationship among two or more entities represents
an association among the entities, for example, a
works-on relationship between an employee and a
project. 17
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Categories of Data Models

• Representational or implementation data models

are the models used most frequently in
traditional commercial DBMSs.
• These include the widely used relational data
model, as well as the so-called legacy data
models—the network and hierarchical models.
• Representational data models represent data by
using record structures and hence are sometimes
called record-based data models.

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Categories of Data Models

• Object data models are also frequently utilized as

high-level conceptual models, particularly in the
software engineering domain.

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Schemas,Instances and DataBase
State
• The description of a database is called the database
schema, which is specified during database design
and is not expected to change frequently.
• A displayed schema is called a schema diagram.
• The data in the database at a particular moment in
time is called a database state or snapshot.
• It is also called the current set of occurrences or
instances in the database. In a given database state,
each schema construct has its own current set of
instances.
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Three – Schema Architecture

The three-schema architecture, was proposed to help achieve

and visualize the characteristics of DBMS.
1.The internal level has an internal schema, which describes
the physical storage structure of the database.
2. The conceptual level has a conceptual schema, which
describes the structure of the whole database for a community of
users. The conceptual schema hides the details of physical
storage structures and concentrates on describing entities, data
types, relationships, user operations, and constraints.
3. The external or view level Each external schema describes
the part of the database that a particular user group is interested
in and hides the rest of the database from that user group.
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Three-Schema Architecture

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Data Independence

• The three-schema architecture can be used to explain the

concept of data independence, which can be defined as the
capacity to change the schema at one level of a database
system without having to change the schema at the next
higher level.
We can define two types of data independence:
• Logical data independence is the capacity to change the
conceptual schema without having to change external
schemas or application programs.
• Physical data independence is the capacity to change the
internal schema without having to change the conceptual
schema. Hence, the external schemas need not be changed as
well. 23
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DataBase System Environment

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DBMS Architecture

• Centralized DBMS Architecture

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Two-Tier Client/Server
Architecture

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Three-tier/n-tier Architecture

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