ANSI Three Level Architecture

• ANSI Three Level Architecture

• External Level
• Conceptual Level
• Internal Level
• The main objective of three level architecture is to
separate each user’s view of the database from the
way the database is physically represented.
• There are others reasons also why this sepration is
desirable:
a)Each user should be able to access the same data
but have different customized view of the data.
b)Users should not have to deal directly with physical
database storage details, In other words a user’s
interaction with the database should be
independent of storage consideration.
c) The DBA should be able to change the database
storage structures without affecting the user’s
view.
 EXTERNAL LEVEL or VIEW LEVEL
• It is the users’ view of the database. This level
describes that part of the database that is relevant
to each user.
• It is the one level which is closest to end user’s. This
level deals with the way in which individual users
view data.
• Individual users are given different views according
to the user’s requirement.
• A view involves only those portions of the database
which are concern to a user.
• Therefore same database can have different views
for different users.
• It is also known as view level , it may have different
representation of the same data.
• For example, one user may view dates in the form
(day, month, year), while another may view dates
as (year, month, day).
 CONCEPTUAL LEVEL or LOGICAL
LEVEL
• It is the community view of the database. This level
describes what data is stored in the database and
the relationships among the data.
• This level contains the logical structure of the entire
database as by the DBA.
• It is a complete view of the data requirements of
the organization that is independent of any storage
considerations.
• It represents:
• All entities, their attributes, and their relationships;
• The constraints on the data;
• Security and integrity information.
• An entity is an object whose information is stored
in database.
• An attribute is a characteristic of interest about an
entity.
• EG:In student database student is
entity ,regno,name,class,address etc are attributes.
• The conceptual level supports each external
view ,in that any data available to a user must be
contained in or derivable from , the conceptual
level.
• However this level must not contain any storage
dependent details.
• For instance , the description of an entity should
contain only data type of attributes and their
length(char name[20]) but not any storage
considerations such as number of bytes occupied.
• This level is also known as the logic level.
 INTERNAL LEVEL or STORAGE LEVEL
• It is the physical representation of the database on
the computer. This level describes how the data is
stored in the database.
• This level covers the physical implementation of the
database to achieve optimal runtime performance
and storage space utilization.
• It covers the data structure and file organization
used to store data on storage devices.
• It interfaces with the operating system access
methods to place data on the data on storage
device.
• The internal level is concerned with:
• Storage space allocation for data and indexes;
• Record descriptions for storage;
• Record placement;
• Data compression and data encryption.
• There will be only one conceptual view , consisting
of abstract representation of the database in its
entirely.
• Similarly there will be only one internal or physical
view , representing the total database as it is
physically stored
 SCHEMA
• The description of a database is called the database
schema, which is specified during database design
and is not expected to change
frequently .
• The overall description of the database is called the
Database Schema.
• A schema is defined as an outline or a plan that
describes the records and relationships existing at
the particular level.
• The schema is sometimes called the intension of the
database, while an instance is called an extension (or
state) of the database.
• The data stored in database at a particular moment of time is
called instance of database or state or snapshot.
• Database schema defines the variable declarations in tables
that belong to a particular database; the value of these
variables at a moment of time is called the instance of that
database.
• MetaData
• Schema Evolution
 TYPES OF SCHEMA

• There are three type of schema in the database

corresponding to each data view of database.
• A schema is defined as an outline or a plan that
describes the record and relationships existing at
the particular level.
• The external view is described by means of schema
called external schema that corresponds to
different views of the data.
• The conceptual view is defined by conceptual schema
which describes all the entities , attributes and
relationship together with integrity constraints.
• Internal view is defined by internal schema which is
complete description of the internal model, containing
defination of stored records , the methods of
representation ,the data fields and the indexes used.
 Mapping between Views
External/Conceptual Mapping
• A mapping between the external and conceptual
views gives the correspondenc among the records
and the relationships of the external and
conceptual views.
Conceptual/Internal Mapping
• Conceptual schema is related to the internal
schema by the conceptual/internal mapping.This
enables the DBMS to find the actual record or
combination of records in physical storage that
constitute a logical record in conceptual schema.
DATA INDEPENDANCE
• A major objective of the three-level architecture is
to provide data independence which means that
upper levels are unaffected by changes in lower
levels.
• The capacity to change the schema at one
level of a database system without having to
change the schema at the next higher
level.
• There are two kind of data Independence:
i) Logical data Independence
ii) Physical Data Independence.
 LOGICAL DATA INDEPENDENCE
• It indicates that the conceputal schema can be
changed without affecting the exisiting external
schemas.
• The change would be absorbed by the mapping
between the external and conceptual levels.
• It also insulates application programs from
operations such as combining two records into one
• This would require a change in the
external/conceptual mapping so as to leave the
external view unchanged
 PHYSICAL DATA INDEPENDENCE
• It indicates that the physical storage structures or
devices could be changed without affecting
conceptual schema.
• The change would be absorbed by mapping
between the conceptual and internal levels.
• Physical data independence criterion requires that
the conceptual level doesnot specify storage
structures or access methods used to retrieve the
data from physical storage medium.
 DBMS Languages

• Database languages are used for read, update and

store data in a database.
• Types of DBMS languages:
• Data Definition Language (DDL): DDL is used for
specifying the database schema. Let’s take SQL for
instance to categorize the statements that comes
under DDL.
 To create the database instance – CREATE
To alter the structure of database – ALTER
To drop database instances – DROP
To delete tables in a database instance – TRUNCATE
To rename database instances – RENAME
• All these commands specify or update the database
schema that’s why they come under Data Definition
language.
• Data Manipulation Language (DML): DML is used
for accessing and manipulating data in a database.
To read records from table(s) – SELECT
To insert record(s) into the table(s) – INSERT
Update the data in table(s) – UPDATE
Delete all the records from the table – DELETE
• Data Control language (DCL): DCL is used for
granting and revoking user access on a database.
To grant access to user – GRANT
To revoke access from user – REVOKE
• Transaction Control language: TCL are used to run
the changes made by DML statements. It allows
statements to be grouped into logical transactions.
COMMIT - It saves the work done
SAVEPOINT - It identifies a point in a transaction to which
you can later roll back
ROLLBACK - It restores the database to original since the
last COMMIT
SET TRANSACTION - It changes the transaction options like
isolation level and what rollback segment to use