Chapter 1: Introduction

Abraham Silberschatz Henry Korth S. Sudarshan

Database Management System

As the name suggests, the database management system consists of

two parts. They are:

Database and
Management System
What is a Database?
To find out what database is, we have to start from data, which is the

basic building block of any DBMS.

Data: Facts, figures, statistics etc. having no particular meaning (e.g.

1, ABC, 19 etc).

Record: Collection of related data items, e.g. in the above example the

three data items had no meaning. But if we organize them in the

following way, then they collectively represent meaningful information.

 Table or Relation: Collection of related records.

The columns of this relation are called Fields, Attributes or Domains.

The rows are called Tuples or Records.

Database: Collection of related relations. Consider the following

collection of tables:

 What is Management System?

A management system is a set of rules and procedures which help us

to create organize and manipulate the database. It also helps us to

add, modify delete data items in the database. The management
system can be either manual or computerized.

The management system is important because without the existence

of some kind of rules and regulations it is not possible to maintain the

database. We have to select the particular attributes which should be
included in a particular table; the common attributes to create
relationship between two tables; if a new record has to be inserted or
deleted then which tables should have to be handled etc. These
issues must be resolved by having some kind of rules to follow in order
to maintain the integrity of the database.

Chapter 1: Introduction
Purpose of Database Systems
View of Data
Database Languages
Relational Databases
Database Design
Object-based and semistructured databases
Data Storage and Querying
Transaction Management
Database Architecture
Database Users and Administrators
Overall Structure
History of Database Systems

Database Management System (DBMS)

DBMS contains information about a particular enterprise

Collection of interrelated data

Set of programs to access the data

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

Online retailers: order tracking, customized recommendations

Manufacturing: production, inventory, orders, supply chain

Human resources: employee records, salaries, tax deductions

Databases touch all aspects of our lives

Purpose of Database Systems

In the early days, database applications were built directly 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

buried in program code rather than being stated explicitly

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

Example: 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

Example: Two people reading a balance and updating it at the
same time

Security problems

Hard to provide user access to some, but not all, data

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

customer_id : string;
customer_name : string;
customer_street : string;
customer_city : integer;
end;
View level: application programs hide details of data types. Views can

also hide information (such as an employees 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

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.

Data Models
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

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

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)

Specification notation for defining the database schema

Example:

create table account (

account-number
balance

char(10),
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

Specifies the storage structure and access methods used

Integrity constraints

Domain constraints

Referential integrity (references constraint in SQL)

Assertions

Authorization

Relational Model
Example of tabular data in the relational model

Attributes

A Sample Relational Database

SQL
SQL: widely used non-procedural language

Example: 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

Example: 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

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
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

The Entity-Relationship Model

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

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

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
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
1. Parsing and translation
2. Optimization
3. Evaluation

Query Processing (Cont.)

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
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 Architecture
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

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

Nave 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
Coordinates all the activities of the database system; the

database administrator has a good understanding of the

enterprises information resources and needs.

Database administrator's duties include:

Schema definition

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

Overall System Structure

History of Database Systems

1950s and early 1960s:

Data processing using magnetic tapes for storage

Tapes provide only sequential access

Punched cards for input

Late 1960s and 1970s:

Hard disks allow 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 (cont.)
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

2000s:

XML and XQuery standards

Automated database administration

End of Chapter 1

Figure 1.4

Figure 1.7