S. K.

Mishra
Lecturer (Information Technology),
Institute of Management Sciences,
University of Lucknow, Lucknow
Database Management
System (DBMS)
• Collection of interrelated data.
• Set of programs to access the data.
• DBMS contains information about a
particular enterprise.
• DBMS provides an environment that is
both convenient and efficient to use.
 Database Applications
1. Banking: all transactions
2. Airlines: reservations, schedules
3. Universities: registration, grades
4. Sales: customers, products, purchases
5. Manufacturing: production, inventory, orders, supply
chain
6. Human resources: employee records, salaries, tax
deductions
7. 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:
1. Data redundancy and inconsistency
a) Multiple file formats, duplication of information in different files
2. Difficulty in accessing data
a) Need to write a new program to carry out each new task
3. Data isolation — multiple files and formats
4. Integrity problems
a) Integrity constraints (e.g. account balance > 0) become part of
program code
b) Hard to add new constraints or change existing ones
5. Atomicity of updates
a) Failures may leave database in an inconsistent state with
partial updates carried out
b) E.g. transfer of funds from one account to another should
either complete or not happen at all
6. Concurrent access by multiple users
a) Concurrent accessed needed for performance
b) Uncontrolled concurrent accesses can lead to inconsistencies
E.g. two people reading a balance and updating it at the same
time
7) Security problems
 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.
Database administrator's duties include:
1. Schema definition
2. Storage structure and access method definition
3. Schema and physical organization modification
4. Granting user authority to access the database
5. Specifying integrity constraints
6. Acting as liaison with users
7. Monitoring performance and responding to changes in
requirements.
 Advantages of a DBMS
1. Reduction in Redundancies: Centralized control of the data
by the DBA avoids unnecessary duplication of the data and
effectively reduces the total amount of data storage is
required. It also eliminates the extra processing necessary to
trace the required data in large mass of data. Another
advantage of avoiding duplication is the elimination of the
inconsistencies that tend to be present in redundant data files.
Any redundancies that exist in the DBMS are controlled and
the system ensures that these multiple copies are consistent.
Ex. Suppose entering data on a new student multiple times;
once for each file where student data is recorded this means
duplication of effort and storage space is wasted and files
that represent the same data may become inconsistent.
2. Restricting Unauthorized Access: Some users will not be
authorized to access all information in the database. A DBMS
should provide a security and authorization subsystem, which
the DBA uses to create accounts and to specify account
restrictions.
Ex. Financial data is often only authorized persons are allowed
to access such data.
3. Providing Backup and Recovery: A backup utility of
database is used to obtain backup at regular interval and a
DBMS must provide facilities for recovering from hardware or
software failures.
Ex. If the computer system fails in the middle of a complex
update program, the recovery subsystem is responsible for
making sure that the database is restored to the state it was in
before the program started executing.
4. Improve Data Integrity: Centralized control can also
ensure that adequate checks are incorporated in the DBMS to
provide data integrity. Data integrity means that the data contained
in the database is both accurate and consistent. Therefore, data
values being entered for storage could be checked to ensure that
they fall within a specified range and are of the correct format.
Another data integrity check that should be incorporated in the
database is to ensure that if there is a reference to certain object, that
object must exist.
In case of Automatic Teller Machine, for example, a user is not
allowed to transfer funds from a nonexistent savings account to a
checking account.
5. Shared Data: A DBMS allows the sharing of
data under its control by any number of
application programs or users.
Ex. Let's consider a situation in the office of a
publishing company, where a data file is shared
or worked upon by many users, for instance, and
the data is shared by the different
departments/sections of the company, like
Accounts Department, Editing Department,
Personnel Department, etc. So, a single resource
is shared and used by multiple users.
6. Conflict Resolutions: Since the database is
under the control of the DBA, she or he should
resolve the conflicting requirements of various
users and applications. In essence, the DBA
chooses the best file structure and access
method to get optimal performance for the
response-critical applications, while permitting
less critical applications to continue to use the
database, albeit with a relatively slower
application.
7. Data Independence: It allows for changes at
one level of the database without affecting other
levels.
Various Levels of DBMS: A DBMS is implemented through
three general Levels:
External Level: This is the level closet to the users and is
concerned with the way in which the data are viewed by
individual users. For example, even though the bank database
sores a lot much information, an account holder (a user) is
interested only in his account details and not with the rest of
information stored in the database.
Conceptual Level: This level of abstraction describes what
data are actually stored in the database. It also describes the
relationships existing among data.
Internal Level: This is the closest to physical storage. This
level is also sometimes termed as physical level. It describes
how the data are actually stored on the storage medium.
 Disadvantages of DBMS
A significant disadvantage of the DBMS system is cost. In
addition to the cost of purchasing or developing the software,
the hardware has to be upgraded to allow for the extensive
programs and the workspaces required for their execution and
storage. The processing overheads introduced by the DBMS
to implement security, integrity, and sharing of the data
causes a degradation of the response and through-put times.
An additional cost is that of the migration from traditionally
separate application environment to an integrated one.
While centralization reduces duplication, the lack of
duplication requires that the database be adequately backed up
so that in case of failure the data can be recovered. Backup
and recovery operations are fairly complex in DBMS
environment, and this is exacerbated in a concurrent multi-
user database system.
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