ASSIGNMENT 1

CO 1
DATA BASE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM
IT 601

ROLL 16500215052
NAME Soumita Dutta
YEAR 2018

Q. NO. QUESTION Marks

1 What is the advantage of database over 5
conventional file system?
2 Explain database architecture (3 schema 5
architecture).

Question 01:
Answer:
A Database Management System (DBMS) is a system-software that allows users to efficiently define,
create, maintain and share databases. Defining a database involves specifying the data types, structures
and constraints of the data to be stored in the database. Creating a database involves storing the data
on some storage medium that is controlled by DBMS. Maintaining a database involves updating the
database whenever required to evolve and reflect changes in the mini-world and also generating
reports for each change. Sharing a database involves allowing multiple users to access the database.
DBMS also serves as an interface between the database and end users or application programs. It
provides control access to the data and ensures that data is consistent and correct by defining rules on
them.
Database Management System has several advantages over the conventional file oriented system.
 Non-redundant and consistent data– Redundancy can be defined as the repetition of data i.e.
each data may have more than a single copy. Since different programmers create the files and
applications programs over a long period, the various files have different structures and they
may be written in different programming languages. Here, same information may be duplicated
in several places. Whereas, DBMS controls redundancy by maintaining a single repository of
data that is defined once and is accessed by many users. As there is no or less redundancy, data
remains consistent.
 Data sharing– File system does not allow sharing of data or sharing is too complex. Whereas in
DBMS, data can be shared easily due to centralized system.
 Data concurrency – Concurrent access to data means more than one user is accessing the same
data at the same time. Anomalies occur when changes made by one user gets lost because of
 changes made by other user. File system does not provide any procedure to stop anomalies.
Whereas DBMS provides a locking system to stop anomalies to occur.
 Data searching – For every search operation performed on file system, a different application
program has to be written. While DBMS provides inbuilt searching operations. Users only have
to write a small query to retrieve data from database.
 Data integrity – There may be cases when some constraints need to be applied on the data
before inserting it in database. The file system does not provide any procedure to check these
constraints automatically. Whereas DBMA maintains data integrity by enforcing user defined
constraints on data by itself.

Question 02:
Answer:
A major purpose of a database management system is to provide users with an abstract view of the
data, i.e., the system hides certain details of how that data is stored and maintained.

View Level
view 1, view 2, view 3, ..................... view n

Logical Level

Physical Level

Three schema architecture

For the system to be usable it must retrieve data efficiently, that’s why developers hide the complexity
from users through several layers of abstraction as shown in the above figure.
a. Physical Level:
 The physical level describes how the data is actually stored into the database. It describes the
low level data structure in details.
 It is also known as the Internal Level.
 This level is very close to the physical storage of data.
 At the lowest level, it is stored in the form of bits with the physical addresses on the secondary
storage device.
 At the highest level, it can be viewed in the form of files.

 The internal schema defines the various stored data types. It uses a physical data model.

b. Logical Level:
 The next higher level of abstraction describes what data is being stored in the database and
what kind of relationship exists between those data.
 It is also called as the data model.
 Logical or conceptual schema is a representation of the entire content of the database.
 These schemas contain all the information to build relevant external records.
 It hides the internal details of physical storage.
c. View Level:
 View or external level is related to the data which is viewed by individual end users.
 This level includes a no. of user views or external schemas.
 This level is closest to the user.
 External view describes the segment of the database that is required for a particular user group
and hides the rest of the database from that user group.