Data Base Short Note

What is database?
Database is a collection of related data and data is a collection of facts and figures that can be processed
to produce information.
Mostly data represents recordable facts. Data aids in producing information, which is based on facts. For
example, if we have data about marks obtained by all students, we can then conclude about toppers and
average marks.
What is database management system (dbms) ?
Database Management System or DBMS in short refers to the technology of storing and retrieving users’
data with utmost efficiency along with appropriate security measures. This tutorial explains the basics of
DBMS such as its architecture, data models, data schemas, data independence, E-R model, relation
model, relational database design, and storage and file structure and much more. In short
A database management system stores data in such a way that it becomes easier to retrieve,
manipulate, and produce information.
Manipulate: means is the skillful handling, controlling or using of Information or data hands (or the
skillful use of the hands) or by the use of mechanical. In fact, most of today's database systems are
referred to as a Relational Database Management System (RDBMS), because of their ability to store
related data across multiple tables.

Some of the more popular relational database management systems include:

 Microsoft Access
 Filemaker
 Microsoft SQL Server
 MySQL
 Oracle

A modern dbms has the following characteristics

 Real-world entity − A modern DBMS is more realistic and uses real-world entities
to design its architecture. It uses the behavior and attributes too. For example, a school
database may use students as an entity and their age as an attribute.

 Relation-based tables − DBMS allows entities and relations among them to

form tables. A user can understand the architecture of a database just by looking at the
table names.
 Isolation of data and application − A database system is entirely different
than its data. A database is an active entity, whereas data is said to be passive, on which
the database works and organizes. DBMS also stores metadata, which is data about data,
to ease its own process.

 Less redundancy − DBMS follows the rules of normalization, which splits a

relation when any of its attributes is having redundancy in values. Normalization is a
mathematically rich and scientific process that reduces data redundancy.

 Consistency − Consistency is a state where every relation in a database remains

consistent. There exist methods and techniques, which can detect attempt of leaving
database in inconsistent state. A DBMS can provide greater consistency as compared to
earlier forms of data storing applications like file-processing systems.

 Query Language − DBMS is equipped with query language, which makes it more
efficient to retrieve and manipulate data. A user can apply as many and as different
filtering options as required to retrieve a set of data. Traditionally it was not possible
where file-processing system was used.

 ACID Properties − DBMS follows the concepts of Atomicity, Consistency,

Isolation, and Durability (normally shortened as ACID). These concepts are applied on
transactions, which manipulate data in a database. ACID properties help the database stay
healthy in multi-transactional environments and in case of failure.

 Multiuser and Concurrent Access − DBMS supports multi-user environment

and allows them to access and manipulate data in parallel. Though there are restrictions
on transactions when users attempt to handle the same data item, but users are always
unaware of them.

 Multiple views − DBMS offers multiple views for different users. A user who is in
the Sales department will have a different view of database than a person working in the
Production department. This feature enables the users to have a concentrate view of the
database according to their requirements.

 Security − Features like multiple views offer security to some extent where users are
unable to access data of other users and departments. DBMS offers methods to impose
constraints while entering data into the database and retrieving the same at a later stage.
DBMS offers many different levels of security features, which enables multiple users to
have different views with different features. For example, a user in the Sales department
cannot see the data that belongs to the Purchase department. Additionally, it can also be
managed how much data of the Sales department should be displayed to the user. Since a
 DBMS is not saved on the disk as traditional file systems, it is very hard for miscreants to
break the code.

Dbms users
A typical DBMS has users with different rights and permissions who use it for different
purposes. Some users retrieve data and some back it up. The users of a DBMS can be broadly
categorized as follows −

 Administrators − Administrators maintain the DBMS and are responsible for

administrating the database. They are responsible to look after its usage and by whom it
should be used. They create access profiles for users and apply limitations to maintain
isolation and force security. Administrators also look after DBMS resources like system
license, required tools, and other software and hardware related maintenance.

 Designers − Designers are the group of people who actually work on the designing
part of the database. They keep a close watch on what data should be kept and in what
format. They identify and design the whole set of entities, relations, constraints, and
views.

 End Users − End users are those who actually reap the benefits of having a DBMS.
End users can range from simple viewers who pay attention to the logs or market rates to
sophisticated users such as business analysts.

 The design of a DBMS depends on its architecture. It can be centralized or

decentralized or hierarchical.
The architecture of a DBMS can be seen as either single tier or multi-tier. An n-tier architecture divides
the whole system into related but independent n modules, which can be independently modified,
altered, changed, or replaced.

What is Database Schema?

A database schema is the skeleton structure that represents the logical view of the entire
database. It defines how the data is organized and how the relations among them are associated.
It formulates all the constraints that are to be applied on the data.

A database schema defines its entities and the relationship among them. It contains a descriptive
detail of the database, which can be depicted by means of schema diagrams. It’s the database
designers who design the schema to help programmers understand the database and make it
useful.

A database schema can be divided broadly into two categories −

 Physical Database Schema:- This schema pertains to the actual storage of data and its
form of storage like files, indices, etc. It defines how the data will be stored in a
secondary storage.

 Logical Database Schema:-this schema defines all the logical constraints that need to be
applied on the data stored. It defines tables, views, and integrity constraints.

Database Instance
It is important that we distinguish these two terms individually. Database schema is the skeleton
of database. It is designed when the database doesn't exist at all. Once the database is
operational, it is very difficult to make any changes to it. A database schema does not contain
any data or information.

A database instance is a state of operational database with data at any given time. It contains a
snapshot of the database. Database instances tend to change with time. A DBMS ensures that its
every instance (state) is in a valid state, by diligently following all the validations, constraints,
and conditions that the database designers have imposed.

Logical Data Independence

Logical data is data about database, that is, it stores information about how data is managed
inside. For example, a table (relation) stored in the database and all its constraints, applied on
that relation.

Logical data independence is a kind of mechanism, which liberalizes itself from actual data
stored on the disk. If we do some changes on table format, it should not change the data residing
on the disk.

Physical Data Independence

All the schemas are logical, and the actual data is stored in bit format on the disk. Physical data
independence is the power to change the physical data without impacting the schema or logical
data.For example, in case we want to change or upgrade the storage system itself − suppose we
want to replace hard-disks with SSD − it should not have any impact on the logical data or
schemas.
Entity
An entity can be a real-world object, either animate or inanimate, that can be easily identifiable.
For example, in a school database, students, teachers, classes, and courses offered can be
considered as entities. All these entities have some attributes or properties that give them their
identity.

An entity set is a collection of similar types of entities. An entity set may contain entities with
attribute sharing similar values. For example, a Students set may contain all the students of a
school; likewise a Teachers set may contain all the teachers of a school from all faculties. Entity
sets need not be disjoint.

Attributes
Entities are represented by means of their properties, called attributes. All attributes have
values. For example, a student entity may have name, class, and age as attributes.

There exists a domain or range of values that can be assigned to attributes. For example, a
student's name cannot be a numeric value. It has to be alphabetic. A student's age cannot be
negative, etc.

Types of Attributes

 Simple attribute − Simple attributes are atomic values, which cannot be divided
further. For example, a student's phone number is an atomic value of 10 digits.

 Composite attribute − Composite attributes are made of more than one simple
attribute. For example, a student's complete name may have first_name and last_name.

 Derived attribute − Derived attributes are the attributes that do not exist in the
physical database, but their values are derived from other attributes present in the
database. For example, average_salary in a department should not be saved directly in the
database, instead it can be derived. For another example, age can be derived from
data_of_birth.

 Single-value attribute − Single-value attributes contain single value. For example −

Social_Security_Number.

 Multi-value attribute − Multi-value attributes may contain more than one values.
For example, a person can have more than one phone number, email_address, etc.
These attribute types can come together in a way like −

 simple single-valued attributes

 simple multi-valued attributes
 composite single-valued attributes
 composite multi-valued attributes

Entity-Set and Keys

Key is an attribute or collection of attributes that uniquely identifies an entity among entity set.

For example, the roll_number of a student makes him/her identifiable among students.

 Super Key − A set of attributes (one or more) that collectively identifies an entity in an
entity set.

 Candidate Key − A minimal super key is called a candidate key. An entity set may have
more than one candidate key.

 Primary Key − A primary key is one of the candidate keys chosen by the database
designer to uniquely identify the entity set.

Relationship
The association among entities is called a relationship. For example, an employee works_at a
department, a student enrolls in a course. Here, Works_at and Enrolls are called relationships.

Relationship Set
A set of relationships of similar type is called a relationship set. Like entities, a relationship too
can have attributes. These attributes are called descriptive attributes.

Mapping Cardinalities

Cardinality defines the number of entities in one entity set, which can be associated with the
number of entities of other set via relationship set.

 One-to-one − One entity from entity set A can be associated with at most one entity of
entity set B and vice versa.
One-to-many − One entity from entity set A can be associated with more than one entities of entity set
B however an entity from entity set B, can be associated with at most one entity.
Many-to-one − More than one entities from entity set A can be associated with at most one entity of
entity set B, however an entity from entity set B can be associated with more than one entity from
entity set A.
Many-to-many − One entity from A can be associated with more than one entity from B and vice versa.

ER Diagram Representation
Any object, for example, entities, attributes of an entity, relationship sets, and attributes of relationship
sets, can be represented with the help of an ER diagram.

Entity
Entities are represented by means of rectangles. Rectangles are named with the entity set they
represent.

Attributes
Attributes are the properties of entities. Attributes are represented by means of ellipses. Every
ellipse represents one attribute and is directly connected to its entity (rectangle).
If the attributes are composite, they are further divided in a tree like structure. Every node is then
connected to its attribute. That is, composite attributes are represented by ellipses that are connected
with an ellipse.
Multivalued attributes are depicted by double ellipse.
Derived attributes are depicted by dashed ellipse.

Concepts
Tables − In relational data model, relations are saved in the format of Tables. This format stores
the relation among entities. A table has rows and columns, where rows represents records and
columns represent the attributes.

Tuple − A single row of a table, which contains a single record for that relation is called a tuple.

Relation instance − A finite set of tuples in the relational database system represents relation
instance. Relation instances do not have duplicate tuples.

Relation schema − A relation schema describes the relation name (table name), attributes, and
their names.
Relation key − Each row has one or more attributes, known as relation key, which can identify
the row in the relation (table) uniquely.

Attribute domain − Every attribute has some pre-defined value scope, known as attribute
domain.

Constraints
Every relation has some conditions that must hold for it to be a valid relation. These conditions
are called Relational Integrity Constraints. There are three main integrity constraints −

 Key constraints
 Domain constraints
 Referential integrity constraints

Key Constraints

There must be at least one minimal subset of attributes in the relation, which can identify a tuple
uniquely. This minimal subset of attributes is called key for that relation. If there are more than
one such minimal subsets, these are called candidate keys.

Key constraints force that −

 in a relation with a key attribute, no two tuples can have identical values for key
attributes.

 a key attribute can not have NULL values.

Key constraints are also referred to as Entity Constraints.

Domain Constraints

Attributes have specific values in real-world scenario. For example, age can only be a positive
integer. The same constraints have been tried to employ on the attributes of a relation. Every
attribute is bound to have a specific range of values. For example, age cannot be less than zero
and telephone numbers cannot contain a digit outside 0-9.

Referential integrity Constraints

Referential integrity constraints work on the concept of Foreign Keys. A foreign key is a key
attribute of a relation that can be referred in other relation.
Referential integrity constraint states that if a relation refers to a key attribute of a different or
same relation, then that key element must exist.