Database and Database Users

Chapter 1
By
Liyakathunisa,
Dept of CS & E
SJCE, Mysore
12/07/21
Introduction
Data:
 Known facts that can be recorded and
have an implicit meaning.
 E.g names, telephone numbers,
addresses of people. Users
 You may have recorded this data in an
book, or stored on a disk. Application

Data Base:
DBMS
 This collection of related data with an
implicit meaning is called a database Database

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Introduction

 Database Management System (DBMS):

 A collection of programs that enables users to
create and maintain DB.
 A software system to facilitate the creation and
maintenance of a computerized database.
 Database System:
 Include the DBMS software, the databases, and
the applications.

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 Example of a Database
 database
 relations (or tables)
 attributes
 tuples (or records)

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 Typical DBMS Functionality

 Defining a database involves specifying

structures, data types and constraints for
the data to be stored in DB.
 Constructing the database is the process
of storing the data itself on a secondary
storage medium
 Manipulating the database includes
querying, generating reports, insertions,
deletions and modifications to its content

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Example of a Database
(with a Conceptual Data Model)
 Some mini-world relationships:
 SECTIONs are of specific COURSEs
 STUDENTs take SECTIONs
 COURSEs have prerequisite COURSEs
 INSTRUCTORs teach SECTIONs
 COURSEs are offered by DEPARTMENTs
 STUDENTs major in DEPARTMENTs

Note: The above could be expressed in the ENTITY-

RELATIONSHIP data model.

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 Characteristics of the Database Approach
 A number of characteristics distinguish the DB approach from the
traditional approach of programming with files.
 In traditional file processing , each users defines and implements
the files needed for a specific application as part of programming
the application.
 For e.g , one user the grade reporting office may keep a file on
students and their grades.
 A second user, the accounting office may keep track of students
fees and their payments. Although both users are interested in
data about students, each user maintains separate files- and
programs to manipulate these files-because each user requires
some data not available from other users files.
 This redundancy in defining and storing data results in wasted
space and in redundant efforts to maintain common data up-to
date..

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Characteristics of the Database Approach

 In data base approach a single repository of

data is maintained that is defined once and
then is accessed by various users .
 The main characteristics of database
approach over the file processing approach
are:

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Characteristics of the Database Approach
1. Self-describing nature of a database system:
 The database contains not only the database itself but
also a complete definition or description of the database.
 This information is stored in the catalog called meta-
data.
 The catalog is used by the DBSM S/W and also by DB
users who need information about the data structures.
 The DBMS stores in the catalog the definition of all the
files .
 Whenever a request is made to access say , Name of a
student record, the DBMS S/W refers to the catalog to
determine the structure of the STUDENT file and the
position and size of the Name data item within a
STUDENT record

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 2. Insulation between programs and data:
 In traditional file processing , the structure of data file is
embedded in the access programs,
 So any changes to the structure of a file may require
changing all program that access this file.
 The structure of data files is stored in the DBMS catalog
separately from the access programs called
 Program-Data independence. Allows changing data
storage structures and operations without having to
change the DBMS access programs.
 For e.g a file access program may be written in such a
way that it can access only STUDENT records of the
structure. If we want to add another piece of data to
each STUDENT record, say BDate , such a pgm will
not work in traditional approach.
 But where as in a DBMS approach we just have to
change the description of the STUDENT record.
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 3. Data abstraction:
 A data model is used to hide storage details and
present the users with a conceptual view of the
database.
4. Support of multiple views of the data:
 A DB has typically many users, each may require a
different perspective view of DB.
 A view may be a subset of the DB.
 Each user may see a different view of the database,
which describes only the data of interest to that user.
 E.g one user may be interested only in the
transcript of each student; the view for this is
shown in text fig 1.4 a.
 A second user is interested only in checking
that student have taken all the prerequisites of
each course they register for.

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5. Sharing of data and multiuser transaction
processing :
 allowing a set of concurrent users to retrieve
and to update the database. Concurrency
control within the DBMS guarantees that each
transaction is correctly executed or
completely aborted. OLTP (Online Transaction
Processing) is a major part of database
applications.

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 Database Users
 Actors on the Scene: actually use and control the content
 Database administrators (DBA): responsible for authorizing
access to the database, for coordinating and monitoring its
use, acquiring software and hardware resources, controlling
its use and monitoring efficiency of operations.
 Database Designers: responsible to define the content, the
structure, the constraints, and functions or transactions
against the database. They must communicate with the end-
users and understand their needs.
 End-users: they use the data for queries, reports and some of
them actually update the database content.
 Workers Behind the Scene: design and implement the DBMS
software and system environment
 DBMS designers and implementers, Tool developers

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Advantages of Using the Database
Approach
1. Controlling Redundancy
 In traditional approach , every user group maintains own file for

handling its data processing applications.

 For e.g consider the University DB ; her two groups of users

might be the course registration personnel and the accounting

office .
 In traditional approach , each group independently keeps files on

students.
 The accounting office also keeps data on registration and related

billing information, whereas the registration office keep track of

student courses and grades.
 Much of the data is stored twice: once in the files of each use

group.

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1. Controlling Redundancy (cont ..)

 This redundancy in storing the same data multiple times leads to

several problems.
 First there is the need to perform a single logical update –such as
entering data on a new student multiple times : once for each file
where student data is recorded.
 This leads to duplication of efforts.
 Second storage space is wasted when the same data is stored
repeatedly and this problem may be serious for large DB.
 Third files that represent the same data may become
inconsistent. This may happen because an update is applied to
some of the files but not others. E.g one user group may enter a
students BDate erroneously as JAN-19-1974, whereas the other
user group may enter the correct value of JAN-29-1974.

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1. Controlling Redundancy (cont ..)
 In Dbase approach the views of different
user groups are integrated during DB
design.
 For consistent , we should have a Dbase
design that stores each logical data item –
such as students name or Bdate in only
one pale in the DB. This does not permit
inconsistency, and it saves storage space..
 However controlled redundancy may be
useful for improving the performance of
queries.

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 2. Restricting unauthorized access to
data.
 When multiple users share DB , it is likely that
some users will not be authorized to access all
information in the DB.
 For e.g financial data is often considered
confidential, and hence only authorized persons
are allowed to access such data.
 In addition some users may be permitted only to
retrieve data, where as others are allowed both
to retrieve and to update.

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 2. Restricting unauthorized access to data
(cont ..).
 Hence the type of access operations –
retrieval or update must also be controlled.
 Typical users or user groups are given
account numbers protected by
passwords , which they can use to gain
access to the DB.
 A DBSM should provide a security and
authorization subsystem which the DBA
uses to create accounts and to provide
account restrictions.
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 3. Providing persistent storage for program
objects and Data Structures.
 Data base can be used to provide persistent storage for programs
objects and data structures.
 programming languages have complex data structures such as
record types in PASCAL or class definition in C++. The values of
program variables are discarded once a program terminates.
 The persistent storage of program objects and data structures is an
important functionality of DB systems. Traditional DB system often
suffered from the so called impedance mismatch problem., since the
data structures provided by the DBMS were incompatible with the
programming language data structures.
 Object oriented database typically offer data structure compatibility
with one or more object oriented programming langs.

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4. Permitting Inferenceing and Actions
using Rules
 Some data base systems provide capabilities for
defining deductions rules for inferncing new
information from the stored DB facts. Such
systems are called deductive data base systems.
 For example there may be complex rules for
determining when Employee is on probation.
 These can be specified deductively as rules,
which when compiled and maintained by the
DBMS can determine all employees on probation

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5.Providing Multiple User Interfaces
 Because many types of users with varying levels of
technical knowledge use a DB , a DBMS provides a
variety of user interfaces. These include query
language for causal users, programming languages
interface for application programmers, forms and
commands for parametric users, and menu driven
and interface and natural Lang interface for stand
alone users.
 Both form style interface and menu driven are
referred to as GUI

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6. Representing complex relationship
among data
 A DBMS must have capability to represent a
variety of complex relationships among data
as well as to retrieve and update related data
easily and efficiently.

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7. Enforcing Integrity constraints

 Most data base applications have certain

integrity constraints that must hold for the
data.
 A DBMS should provide capability for
defineing and enforcing these constraints.
 The simplest type of constraints involve
specifying a data type for each data item

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8. Providing backup and recovery

 A DBMS provide facilities for recovering from

H/W or S/W failures. The backup and
recovery subsystem of the DBMS is
responsible for recovery.

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Additional Advantages of Using the
Database Approach
 Potential for enforcing standards
 permit the DBA to define and enforce standards among database users in a
large organization. This facilitates communication and cooperation among
various departments, projects, and users within the organization.
 Reduced application development time
 designing and implementing a new database from scratch may take a long
time. The easy-to-use interfaces of DBMS reduces the time to develop a new
application.
 Flexibility to change data structures
 database structure may evolve as new requirements are defined.
 Availability of up-to-date information
 as soon as one user’s update is applied to the database, all other users can
immediately see this update
 Economies of scale
 consolidate data and applications to reduce the amount of wasteful overlap
of resources and personnel in different projects or departments

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 End of Chapter 1

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