UNIT : 1

QUESTION: Who are data administrators ? What are the funetions

of database administrator ?

OR

Discuss the role of database administrator.

ANSWER: Database administrators are the personnel's who has control over data and
programs used for accessing the data.

Functions/role of database administrator (DBA):

1. Schema definition:

a Original database schema is defined by DBA.

b. This is accomplished by writing a set of definitions, which are

translated by the DDL compiler to a set of labels that are permanently

stored in the data dictionary.

2.Storage structure and access method definition:

a. The creation of appropriate storage structure and access method.

b. This is accomplished by writing a set of definitions, which are

translated by the data storage and definition language compiler.

3. Schema and physical organization and modification:

a Modification of the database schema or the description of the physical

storage organization.

b. These changes are accomplished by writing a set of definition to do

modification to the appropriate internal system tables.

4. Granting of authorization for data access: DBA grants different

types of authorization for data access to the various users of the database

5. Integrity constraint specification: DBA carry out data

administration in data dictionary such as defining constraints.

QUESTION: Describe data independence with its types.

OR

Explain data independence with its types.

ANSWER: Data independence : Data independence is defined as the capacity to change

the schema at one level of a database system without having to change the

schema at the next higher level.

Types of data independence :

1. Physical data independence:

a. Physical data independence is the ability to modify internal schema

without changing the conceptual schema.

b. Modification at the physical level is occasionally necessary in order

to improve performance.

c. It refers to the immunity of the concept of schema to change in the

internal schema.

d Examples of physical data independence are reorganizations of

files, adding a new access path or modifying indexes, etc.

2. Logical data independence:

a. Logical data independence is the ability to modify the conceptual

schema without having to change the external schemas or

application programs.

b. It refers to the immunity of the external model to changes in the

conceptual model.

c. Examples of logical data independence are addition/removal of

entities.

QUESTION: Describe the classification of database language. Which

type of language is SQL ?

OR

Discuss the following terms (i) DDL Command (ii) DML command

ANSWER:

Classification of database languages :

1. Data Definition Language (DDL):

a. DDL is set of SQL commands used to create, modify and delete

database structures but not data.

b. They are used by the DBA toa limited extent, a database designer,

or application developer.

C. Create, drop, alter, truncate are commonly used DDL command.

2. Data Manipulation Language (DML):

a. A DML is a language that enables users to access or manipulates

data as organized by the appropriate data model.

b. There are two types of DMLs:

i. Procedural DMLs: It requires a user to specify what data

are needed and how to get those data.

ii. Declarative DMLs (Non-procedural DMLs):It requires

user to specify what data are needed without specifying

how to get those data.

C. Insert, update, delete, query are commonly used DML commands.

3. Data Control Language (DCL):

a. It is the component of SQL statement that control access to data

and to the database.

b. Commit, rollback command are used in DCL.

4. Data Query Language (DQL):

a. It is the component of SQL statement that allows getting data

from the database and imposing ordering upon it

b. It includes select statement.

5: View Definition Language (VDL):

1. VDL is used to specify user views and their mapping to conceptual

schema.

It defines the subset of records available to classes of users.

3. It creates virtual tables and the view appears to users like conceptual

level.

4. It specifies user interfaces.

SQL is a DML language.

QUESTION: Describe mapping constraints with its types.

OR

Describe mapping constraints with its types.

ANSWER:

1. Mapping constraints act as a rule followed by contents of database.

2. Data in the database must follow the constraints.

Types of mapping constraints are

1. Mapping cardinalities:

a. Mapping cardinalities (or cardinality ratios) specifies the number of entities of which another
entity can be associated via a relationship set.

b. Mapping cardinalities are used in describing binary relationship

sets, although they contribute to the description of relationship

sets that involve more than two entity sets.

C. For binary relationship set R between entity sets A and B, the

mapping cardinality must be one of the following:

i. One to one : An entity in A is associated with at most one

entity in B and an entity in B is associated with at most one

entity in A.

ii. One to many : An entity in A is associated with any number

of entities in B. An entity in B, however, can be associated with

at most one entity in A.

iii. Many to one : An entity in A is associated with at most one

entity in B, and an entity in B, however, can be associated with

any number of entities in A.

iv. Many to many: An entity in A is associated with any number

of entities in B, and an entity in B is associated with any number

of entities in A.

2. Participation constraints : It tells the participation of entity sets.

There are two types of participations

(i) Partial participation (ii) Total Participation

QUESTION: What is data abstraction ? Explain different levels of

abstraction.

ANSWER: Data abstraction is the process of finding irrelevant details from user i.e.,

hiding the background details from the users.

Different levels of data abstraction:

1: Physical level:

i.Physical level is the lowest level of abstraction and describes how

the data are actually stored.

ii. The physical level describes the complex low-level data structures

in details.

2: Logical level:

i.Logical level is the next-higher level of abstraction and it describes

what data are stored in the database, and what relationship exists

among those data.

ii. The logical level thus describes the entire database in terms of a

small number of relatively simple structures.

3: View level:

i. View level is the highest level of abstraction; it describes only part

of the entire database.

ii. The view level of abstraction exists to simplify their interaction

with the system.

iii. The system may provide many views for the same database.