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Database 2.2

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18 views

Database 2.2

Uploaded by

yungshifu7
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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(University of Choice)

MASINDE MULIRO UNIVERSITY OF


SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
(MMUST)
MAIN CAMPUS

UNIVERSITY EXAMINATIONS
2019/2020 ACADEMIC YEAR

SECOND YEAR SECOND SEMESTER EXAMINATIONS

FOR THE DEGREE


OF
BACHELOR OF IT

COURSE CODE: BIT 221

COURSE TITLE: DATABASE SYSTEMS

DATE: TIME:
INSTRUCTIONS TO CANDIDATES

Question ONE (1) is compulsory


Attempt any TWO (2) questions

TIME: 2 Hours
MMUST observes ZERO tolerance to examination cheating
This Paper Consists of 4 Printed Pages. Please Turn Over.

QUESTION ONE [30 Marks]


a) In your view, what are the uses of transactions in database systems. [8 Marks]
b) Describe any other method of concurrency control other than locking. [4 Marks]
c) Today, instead or purchasing physical machines, an alternate approach to running
a database management system is to run it in the cloud. One of the key promises
of the cloud is the illusion of infinite resources and the ability for users to elastically
grow and shrink the resource consumption of their DBMS.
i. Why can it be difficult to scale a relational DBMS? [6 Marks]
ii. Indicate one approach that the so-called “NoSQL" systems take to overcome
the above challenge (Why can it be difficult to scale a relational DBMS).
[6 Marks]
d) For each of the following protocols, describe aspects of practical applications that
would lead you to suggest using the protocol, and aspects that would suggest not
using the protocol: [6 Marks]
i. Two-phase locking
ii. Timestamp ordering
iii. Validation
QUESTION TWO [20 Marks]
a) Consider the following relational database:
employee (employee-name, street, city)
works (employee-name, company-name, salary)
company (company-name, city)
manages (employee-name, manager-name)

Give an SQL DDL definition of this database. Identify referential-integrity


constraints that should hold, and include them in the DDL definition. [8 Marks]
b) Explain two major problems with processing update operations expressed in terms
c) Suppose that there is a database system that never fails. Is a recovery manager
required for this system, if no why if yes how? [6 Marks]
QUESTION THREE [20 Marks]
a) Consider a bank that has a collection of sites, each running a database system.
Suppose the only way the databases interact is by electronic transfer of money
between one another. Would such a system qualify as a distributed database?
With reasons Why or why not? [6 Marks]
b) With the aid of example explain in relation to MMUST system how the following differ:
i. Fragmentation transparency [3 Marks]
ii. Replication transparency [3 Marks]
iii. Location transparency. [3 Marks]
c) When a transaction is rolled back under timestamp ordering, it is assigned a new
timestamp. Why can it not simply keep its old timestamp? [5 Marks]

QUESTION FOUR [20 Marks]


a) Is Big Data a myth or a paradigm shift? Discuss [6 Marks]
b) Many of the technologies within the Big Data ecosystem have an open source origin,
due to participation, innovation and sharing by commercial providers in open source
development projects. Can the same be said about the proprietary technologies? With
convincing reason outline your views [6 Marks]
c) In your view does Big Data concept hold a future for organizations? If yes how and if
no why? Argue with examples regarding your opinion [8 Marks]

QUESTION FIVE [20 Marks]


The following table shows the schedule for three transactions updating values A, B, C.
Time Transactions
T1 T2 T3
t0 read_item (A)
t1 read_item (B)
t2 read_item (B)
t3 read_item (B)
t4 read_item (A)
t5 read_item (C)
t6 write_item (C)
t7 write_item (B)
t8 write_item (A)
t9 read_item (C)
t10 read_item (B)
t11 write_item (B)
t12 abort write_item (C)
t13 commit commit

a) Explain why the above schedule could result in update errors in a database without
concurrency control. [5 Marks]
b) Locking could be used to allow concurrent execution of the three transactions t1,
t2 and t3.
i. Explain how locking works, and how it interacts with the transaction mechanism.
[9 Marks]
ii. Demonstrate the effect of locking on the schedule shown above. [6 Marks]

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