Introduction

 Purpose of Database Systems

 View of Data
 Data Models
 Data Definition Language
 Data Manipulation Language
 Transaction Management
 Storage Management
 Database Administrator
 Database Users
 Overall System Structure
Database Management System
(DBMS)
 Collection of interrelated data
 Set of programs to access the data
 DBMS provides an environment that is both convenient and
efficient to use.
 Database Applications:

 Banking: all transactions

 Airlines: reservations, schedules
 Universities: registration, grades
 Sales: customers, products, purchases
 Manufacturing: production, inventory, orders, supply chain
 Human resources: employee records, salaries, tax deductions
 Databases touch all aspects of our lives
Purpose of Database System
 In the early days, database applications were built
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
 Integrity problems
 Integrity constraints (e.g. account balance > 0) become part
of program code
 Hard to add new constraints or change existing ones
 Purpose of Database Systems (Cont.)
 Drawbacks of using file systems (cont.)
 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
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
name : string;
street : string;
city : integer;
end;
 View level: application programs hide details of data
types. Views can also hide information (e.g., 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
 e.g., 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
 Entity-Relationship model
 Relational model
 Other models:
 object-oriented model
 semi-structured data models
 Older
model models: network model and hierarchical
 Entity-Relationship Model
Example of schema in the entity-relationship model
Entity Relationship Model (Cont.)
 E-R model of real world
 Entities (objects)
 E.g. customers, accounts, bank branch
 Relationships between entities
 E.g.Account A-101 is held by customer Johnson
 Relationship set depositor associates customers with accounts

 Widely used for database design

 Database design in E-R model usually converted to
design in the relational model (coming up next) which is
used for storage and processing
Relational Model Attributes

 Example of tabular data in the relational model

customer- customer- customer- account-
Customer-
name street city number
id
192-83-7465 Johnson
Alma Palo Alto A-101
019-28-3746 Smith
North Rye A-215
192-83-7465 Johnson
Alma Palo Alto A-201
321-12-3123 Jones
Main Harrison A-217
019-28-3746 Smith
North Rye A-201
A Sample Relational Database
Data Definition Language (DDL)
 Specification notation for defining the database
schema
 E.g. create table account (
account-number 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
 language in which the storage structure and access methods
used by the database system are specified
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
 Nonprocedural – user specifies what data is required
without specifying how to get those data
 SQL is the most widely used query language
SQL
 SQL: widely used non-procedural language
 E.g. 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’
 E.g. find the balances of all accounts held by the
customer with customer-id 192-83-7465
select account.balance
from depositor, account
where depositor.customer-id = ‘192-83-7465’
and
depositor.account-number =
account.account-number
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
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.
 efinition
 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
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.
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
Overall System Structure
• 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
 Application Architectures

Two-tier architecture: E.g. client programs using ODBC/JDBC to

communicate with a database
Three-tier architecture: E.g. web-based applications, and
applications built using “middleware”