1

Introduction to Database
Management Systems
Introduction 2

 Good decisions require good information derived from raw

facts

 Data is managed most efficiently when stored in a database

 Databases evolved from computer file systems

 Understanding file system characteristics is important

Qualities of Useful Information 3
Why Databases? 4

 Databases solve many of the problems encountered in data

management.
 Used in almost all modern settings involving data management:
 Business

 Research

 Administration

 Important to understand how databases work and interact

with other applications.
Data vs. Information 5
 Data are raw facts
 Information is the result of processing raw data to reveal meaning
 Information requires context to reveal meaning
 Raw data must be formatted for storage, processing, and presentation
 Data are the foundation of information, which is the bedrock of
knowledge
 Information used to reveal meaning in data
 Accurate, relevant, timely information is the key to good decision making
 Good decision making is the key to organizational survival
 Data management: focuses on proper generation, storage, and retrieval
of data
Data vs. Information 6
Data vs. Information 7
Introducing the Database 8
 Database: shared, integrated computer structure that stores
a collection of:
 End-user data: raw facts of interest to end user
 Metadata: data about data
 Provides description of data characteristics and relationships in data
 Complements and expands value of data

 Database management system (DBMS): collection of

programs
 Manages structure and controls access to data
 Collection of interrelated data
 Set of programs to access the data
 An environment that is both convenient and efficient to use
Database Systems 9

 Database system consists of logically related data stored in a

single logical data repository.
 May be physically distributed among multiple storage facilities
 DBMS eliminates most of file system’s problems

 Current generation stores data structures, relationships between

structures, and access paths
 Also defines, stores, and manages all access paths and components
Database Systems 10
The Database System Environment 11

 Database system: defines and regulates the collection,

storage, management, use of data.
 Five major parts of a database system:
 Hardware

 Software
 People
 Procedures
 Data
The Database System Environment 12
The Database System Environment 13
 Hardware: all the system’s physical devices
 Software: three types of software required
 Operating system software
 DBMS software
 Application programs and utility software
 People: all users of the database system
 System and database administrators
 Database designers
 Systems analysts and programmers
 End users
 Procedures: instructions and rules that govern the design and use of the
database system
 Data: the collection of facts stored in the database
The Database System Environment 14

 Database systems are created and managed at

different levels of complexity
 Database solutions must be cost-effective as well as
tactically and strategically effective
 Database technology already in use affects
selection of a database system
DBMS Functions 15

 Most functions are transparent to end users

 Can only be achieved through the DBMS
 Data dictionary management
 DBMS stores definitions of data elements and relationships
(metadata) in a data dictionary
 DBMS looks up required data component structures and
relationships
 Changes automatically recorded in the dictionary
 DBMS provides data abstraction and removes structural
and data dependency
DBMS Functions 16

 Data storage management

 DBMS creates and manages complex structures required for data
storage
 Also stores related data entry forms, screen definitions, report
definitions, etc.
 Performance tuning: activities that make the database perform more
efficiently
 DBMS stores the database in multiple physical data files
DBMS Functions 17

 Data transformation and presentation

 DBMS transforms data entered to conform to required data structures

 DBMS transforms physically retrieved data to conform to user’s logical

expectations

 Security management
 DBMS creates a security system that enforces user security and data
privacy

 Security rules determine which users can access the database, which
items can be accessed, etc.
DBMS Functions 18

 Multiuser access control

 DBMS uses sophisticated algorithms to ensure concurrent access does
not affect integrity

 Backup and recovery management

 DBMS provides backup and data recovery to ensure data safety and
integrity

 Recovery management deals with recovery of database after a

failure
 Critical to preserving database’s integrity
DBMS Functions 19
 Data integrity management
 DBMS promotes and enforces integrity rules
 Minimizes redundancy
 Maximizes consistency
 Data relationships stored in data dictionary used to enforce data
integrity
 Integrity is especially important in transaction-oriented database
systems
 Database access languages and application programming
interfaces
 DBMS provides access through a query language
 Query language is a nonprocedural language
 Structured Query Language (SQL) is the de facto query language
 Standard supported by majority of DBMS vendors
DBMS Functions 20

 Database communication interfaces

 Current DBMSs accept end-user requests via multiple
different network environments
 Communications accomplished in several ways:
 End users generate answers to queries by filling in screen forms
through Web browser

 DBMS automatically publishes predefined reports on a Web site

 DBMS connects to third-party systems to distribute information via

e-mail
Database-System Applications 21
Databases are widely used. Here are some representative applications:
Enterprise Information
 Sales: For customer, product, and purchase information.
 Accounting: For payments, receipts, account balances, assets and other
accounting information.
 Human resources: For information about employees, salaries, payroll
taxes, and benefits, and for generation of paychecks.
 Manufacturing: For management of the supply chain and for tracking
production of items in factories, inventories of items in warehouses and
stores, and orders for items.
 Online retailers: For sales data noted above plus online order tracking,
generation of recommendation lists, and maintenance of online product
evaluations.
Database-System Applications 22
Banking and Finance
 Banking: For customer information, accounts, loans, and
banking transactions.
 Credit card transactions: For purchases on credit cards and
generation of monthly statements.
 Finance: For storing information about holdings, sales, and
purchases of financial instruments such as stocks and bonds;
also for storing real-time market data to enable online
trading by customers and automated trading by the firm.
Database-System Applications 23
 Universities: For student information, course registrations, and
grades (in addition to standard enterprise information such as
human resources and accounting).
 Airlines: For reservations and schedule information. Airlines were
among the first to use databases in a geographically distributed
manner.
 Telecommunication: For keeping records of calls made, generating
monthly bills, maintaining balances on prepaid calling cards, and
storing information about the communication networks.
 Databases touch all aspects of our lives
University Database Example 24

 Application program examples

 Add new students, instructors, and courses

 Register students for courses, and generate class rosters

 Assign grades to students, compute grade point averages (GPA) and

generate transcripts

 In the early days, database applications were built directly on

top of file systems
Drawbacks of File Systems 25
 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 “buried” in
program code rather than being stated explicitly
 Hard to add new constraints or change existing ones
Drawbacks of file systems 26
 Atomicity of updates
 Failures
may leave database in an inconsistent state with partial
updates carried out
 Example:Transfer of funds from one account to another should either
complete or not happen at all
 Concurrent access by multiple users
 Concurrent access needed for performance
 Uncontrolled concurrent accesses can lead to inconsistencies
 Example: Two people reading a balance (say 100) and updating it
by withdrawing money (say 50 each) at the same time
 Security problems
 Hard to provide user access to some, but not all, data
Role and Advantages of the DBMS 27
 DBMS is the intermediary between the user and the database
 Database structure stored as file collection

 Can only access files through the DBMS

 DBMS enables data to be shared

 DBMS integrates many users’ views of the data
 Improved data security
 Better data integration
 Minimized data inconsistency
 Improved data access
 Increased end-user productivity
28
Levels of Abstraction 29
For the system to be usable, it must retrieve data efficiently. The need for
efficiency has led designers to use complex data structures to represent data in
the database.
 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 instructor = record
ID : string;
name : string;
dept_name : string;
salary : integer;
end;

 View level: application programs hide details of data types. Views can also
hide information (such as an employee’s salary) for security purposes.
View of Data 30
An architecture for a database system
Instances and Schemas 31
 Similar to types and variables in programming languages
 Schema – the logical structure of the database
 Example: 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.
Types of Databases 32
 Databases can be classified according to:
 Number of users
 Database location(s)
 Expected type and extent of use
 Single-user database supports only one user at a time
 Desktop database: single-user; runs on PC
 Multiuser database supports multiple users at the same
time
 Workgroup and enterprise databases
Types of Databases 33

 Centralized database: data located at a single site

 Distributed database: data distributed across
several different sites
 Operational database: supports a company’s day-
to-day operations
 Transactional or production database
 Data warehouse: stores data used for tactical or
strategic decisions
 Types of Databases 34

 Unstructured data exist in their original state

 Structured data result from formatting
 Structure applied based on type of processing to be performed
 Semistructured data have been processed to some extent
 Extensible Markup Language (XML) represents data elements in
textual format
 XML database supports semistructured XML data
35
 Database Languages 36

A database system provides a data definition language (DDL) to

specify the database schema and a data manipulation language
(DML) to express database queries and updates. In practice, the
data-definition and data-manipulation languages are not two
separate languages; instead they simply form parts of a single
database language, such as the widely used SQL language.
 Data Manipulation Language (DML) 37
 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
 Declarative (nonprocedural) – user specifies what data is
required without specifying how to get those data
 SQL is the most widely used query language
Data Definition Language (DDL) 38
 Specification notation for defining the database schema
Example: create table instructor (ID char(5), name varchar(20),
dept_name varchar(20), salary numeric(8,2))
 DDL compiler generates a set of table templates stored in a data dictionary
 Data dictionary contains metadata (i.e., data about data)
 Database schema
 Integrity constraints
 Primary key (ID uniquely identifies instructors)
 Referential integrity (references constraint in SQL)

 e.g. dept_name value in any instructor tuple must appear in

department relation
 Authorization (read authorization, insert authorization, update
authorization, delete authorization)
 Structured Query Language (SQL) 39
 SQL: widely used non-procedural language
 Example: Find the name of the instructor with ID 22222
select name
from instructor
where instructor.ID = ‘22222’

 Example: Find the ID and building of instructors in the Physics dept.

select instructor.ID, department.building
from instructor, department
where instructor.dept_name = department.dept_name and
department.dept_name = ‘Physics’

 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
Database Design 40
The process of designing the general structure of the database:
 Logical Design– Deciding on the database schema.
Database design requires that we find a “good” collection of
relation schemas.
 Business decision – What attributes should we record in the database?
 Computer Science decision – What relation schemas should we have
and how should the attributes be distributed among the various
relation schemas?

 Physical Design– Deciding on the physical layout of the

database
Why Database Design Is Important 41
 Database design focuses on design of database
structure used for end-user data
 Designer must identify database’s expected use

 Well-designed database:
 Facilitates data management
 Generates accurate and valuable information

 Poorly designed database:

 Causes difficult-to-trace errors
Data Models 42
 A collection of tools for describing
 Data
 Data relationships
 Data semantics
 Data constraints
 Relational model
 Entity-Relationship data model (mainly for database design)
 Object-based data models (Object-oriented and Object-
relational)
 Semistructured data model (XML)
 Other older models:
 Network model
 Hierarchical model
Design Approaches 43
 Normalization Theory
 Formalize what designs are bad, and test for them
 Entity Relationship Model
 Models an enterprise as a collection of entities and
relationships
The Entity-Relationship Model 44
 Models an enterprise as a collection of entities and relationships
 Entity: a “thing” or “object” in the enterprise that is distinguishable from
other objects
 Described by a set of attributes
 Relationship: an association among several entities
 Represented diagrammatically by an entity-relationship
diagram:
Object-Relational Data Models 45
 Relational model: flat, “atomic” values
 Object Relational Data Models
 Extend the relational data model by including object
orientation and constructs to deal with added data
types.
 Allow attributes of tuples to have complex types,
including non-atomic values such as nested relations.
 Preserve relational foundations, in particular the
declarative access to data, while extending modeling
power.
 Provide upward compatibility with existing relational
languages.
 XML: Extensible Markup Language 46

 Defined by the WWW Consortium (W3C)

 Originally intended as a document markup language not a
database language
 The ability to specify new tags, and to create nested tag
structures made XML a great way to exchange data, not just
documents
 XML has become the basis for all new generation data
interchange formats.
 A wide variety of tools is available for parsing, browsing and
querying XML documents/data
Storage Management 47
 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
 Issues:
 Storage access
 File organization
 Indexing and hashing
Query Processing 48

1. Parsing and translation

2. Optimization
3. Evaluation
Query Processing 49
 Alternative ways of evaluating a given query
 Equivalent expressions
 Different algorithms for each operation
 Cost difference between a good and a bad way of
evaluating a query can be enormous
 Need to estimate the cost of operations
 Depends critically on statistical information about relations
which the database must maintain
 Need to estimate statistics for intermediate results to
compute cost of complex expressions
Transaction Management 50
 What if the system fails?
 What if more than one user is concurrently updating the same
data?
 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.
Database Users and Administrators 51

Database
 Database Users 52
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 previously
 Examples, people accessing database over the web, bank tellers,
clerical staff
Database Administrator 53
 Coordinates all the activities of the database system
 has a good understanding of the enterprise’s information
resources and needs.
 Database administrator's duties include:
 Storage structure and access method definition
 Schema and physical organization modification
 Granting users authority to access the database
 Backing up data
 Monitoring performance and responding to changes
 Database tuning
Database System Internals
54
 Database Architecture 55
The architecture of a database systems is greatly influenced by
the underlying computer system on which the database is
running:
 Centralized
 Client-server
 Parallel (multi-processor)
 Distributed
History of Database Systems 56
 1950s and early 1960s:
 Data processing using magnetic tapes for storage
 Tapes provided only sequential access
 Punched cards for input
 Late 1960s and 1970s:
 Hard disks allowed direct access to data
 Network and hierarchical data models in widespread use
 Ted Codd defines the relational data model
 Would win the ACM Turing Award for this work
 IBM Research begins System R prototype
 UC Berkeley begins Ingres prototype
 High-performance (for the era) transaction processing
 History
57
 1980s:
 Research relational prototypes evolve into commercial systems
 SQL becomes industrial standard
 Parallel and distributed database systems
 Object-oriented database systems
 1990s:
 Large decision support and data-mining applications
 Large multi-terabyte data warehouses
 Emergence of Web commerce
 Early 2000s:
 XML and XQuery standards
 Automated database administration
 Later 2000s:
 Giant data storage systems
 Google BigTable, Yahoo PNuts, Amazon, ..
Preparing for Your Database Professional Career
58
Question-Answer!! 59
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