UNIVERSITY INSTITUTE OF COMPUTING

UNIT-1
Bachelor of Science (Computer Science)
DATABASE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM
(21SCT212)

ARCHITECTURE OF DBMS DISCOVER . LEARN . EMPOWER

 Agenda

1. Three Level Architecture Introduction

2. Objective of Three Level Architecture
3. Explanation of Three Level Architecture
4. Mapping between Views

2
Architecture of DBMS
 Three Level Architecture
• The DBMS architecture is a framework where the structure of the DBMS is
described. The main aim of designing the DBMS architecture is to provide users
with an abstract view of the data by hiding certain details of how data is stored
and maintained.

It consist of the three levels:

• External Level
• Conceptual Level
• Internal Level
 Objectives of Three Level Architecture
The main objective of three level architecture is to enable multiple users to
access the same data with a personalized view while storing the underlying data
only once. This separation is desirable for the following reasons:
 Different users need different views of same data.
 The approach in which a particular user needs to see the data may change over
time.
 The users of the database should not worry about the physical implementation
and internal workings of the database such as data encryption, hashing etc
Objectives of Three Level Architecture

All the user should be able to access the same data according to the requirement.
DBA should be able to change the conceptual structure of the database without
affecting the user’s view.
Conceptual structure of the database should be unaffected by changes to
physical aspects of the storage.
Three Level Architecture
Levels of Architecture
 External Level/View Level
• The user’s view of the database.
• It consists of a number of different external views of the DB.
• Describes part of the DB for particular group of users.
• Provides a powerful and flexible security mechanism by hiding parts of the DB
from certain users.
• It permits users to access data in a way that is customized to their needs, so that
the same data can be seen by different users in different ways, at the same time.

So we can say that Creating separate views of the database for different users
help in ensuring the database security.
 Conceptual Level
• The logical structure of the entire database as seen by DBA.
• What data is stored in the database.
• Represents:
- Entities, attributes, relationship
- Constraints on data ,Security, integrity information
• The relationships among the data.
• Complete view of the data requirements of the organization, Independent of any
storage consideration.
While designing the database, the conceptual schema is first to be defines. It is
defined using the DDL provided by the DBMS
 Internal Level
• Physical representation of the Database on the computer.
• How the data is stored in the database and also describes the data structures and
access method to be used by the database.
• In Simple words we can say that it holds information about data.
• Physical implementation of the DB to achieve optimal run–
Time performance and storage space utilization.
- Storage space allocation for data and indexes
- Record description for storage
- Record placement
- Data compression, encryption
 Physical Level
As the name suggests, the Physical level tells us that where the data is actually
stored i.e. it tells the actual location of the data that is being stored by the user.

Below the internal level is the physical level which is managed by the operating
system under the directions of DBMS. It deals with the mechanism of physically
storing data on a device such as disk. Managed by the OS under the direction of
the DBMS.
Three Level Architecture
Mapping between Views
 Mapping between Views
The three levels of DBMS architecture don’t exist independently of each other.
There may be correspondence between the three levels i.e. how they are actually
correspond with each other. DBMS is responsible for the correspondence
between the three types of schemas. This correspondence between different
levels is known as Mapping
 
There are basically two types of mapping in the database architecture:
• Conceptual/ Internal Mapping
• External/ Conceptual Mapping
 External/ Conceptual Mapping
External Conceptual Mapping: 
• The external/ Conceptual mapping lies between the external level and the
conceptual level.
• Its role is to define the correspondence (communication) between a particular
external view and the conceptual view.
• It gives the correspondence among the records of external and conceptual views.
Any changes in the conceptual level are reflected in this mapping with the
external schema unmodified.

Any changes in conceptual level can be viewed by user at external levels but
their external schema remains unmodified.
 Conceptual/ Internal Mapping
 Conceptual/ Internal Mapping
• The conceptual/Internal mapping lies between the conceptual level and the
internal level.
• Its role is to define the correspondence (communication) between records and
fields of the conceptual level and files and data structures of the internal level.
• It enables the DBMS to find the actual record and combination of records in the
physical storage that constitute a logical record in the conceptual schema, along
with any constraints to be enforced on the operations for that logical record.
Conceptual level can view all the changes done in internal level through its
mapping. This level doesn’t know how data structure changes i.e. at internal
level but can access the updated database through mapping
 References of Text Books

Fundamentals of Database Systems by R.Elmasri and S.B.Navathe, Pearson

Education, New Delhi.

An Introduction to Database Systems by C.J. Date, Pearson Education, New Delhi.

A Guide to the SQL Standard, Data, C. and Darwen, H, Reading, Addison-Wesley

Publications, New Delhi.
THANK YOU