Chapter 8:

Data Storage, Indexing

Structures for Files
Overview of Database Design Process Miniworld

REQUIREMENTS - COLLECTION & ANALYSIS

Functional requirements Data requirements

DBMS–independent

FUNCTIONAL ANALYSIS
CONCEPTUAL DESIGN

High-level transaction Conceptual schema

specification
LOGICAL DESIGN
(DATA MODEL MAPPING)
DBMS–specific

APPLICATION PROGRAM Database schema

DESIGN
PHYSICAL DESIGN

TRANSACTION
Internal schema
IMPLEMENTATION

Application program
Application Design Database Design 2
 Outline
 Data Storage
• Disk Storage Devices
• Files of Records
• Operations on Files
• Unordered Files
• Ordered Files
• Hashed Files
• RAID Technology
 Indexing Structures for Files
• Types of Single-level Ordered Indexes
• Multilevel Indexes
• Dynamic Multilevel Indexes Using B-Trees and B+-Trees
• Indexes on Multiple Keys

3
 Disk Storage Devices
 Preferred secondary storage device for high
storage capacity and low cost.
 Data stored as magnetized areas on magnetic
disk surfaces.
 A disk pack contains several magnetic disks
connected to a rotating spindle.
 Disks are divided into concentric circular
tracks on each disk surface.
• Track capacities vary typically from 4 to 50
Kbytes or more

4
 Disk Storage Devices (contd.)
 A track is divided into smaller blocks or
sectors
• because it usually contains a large amount of
information
 A track is divided into blocks.
• The block size B is fixed for each system.
• Typical block sizes range from B=512 bytes to
B=4096 bytes.
• Whole blocks are transferred between disk and
main memory for processing.

5
Disk Storage Devices (contd.)

6
 Disk Storage Devices (contd.)
 A read-write head moves to the track that contains the
block to be transferred.
• Disk rotation moves the block under the read-write head
for reading or writing.
 A physical disk block (hardware) address consists of:
• a cylinder number (imaginary collection of tracks of
same radius from all recorded surfaces)
• the track number or surface number (within the cylinder)
• and block number (within track).
 Reading or writing a disk block is time consuming
because of the seek time s and rotational delay
(latency) rd.
 Double buffering can be used to speed up the transfer
of contiguous disk blocks.

7
Disk Storage Devices (contd.)

8
 Records
 Fixed and variable length records
 Records contain fields which have values of a
particular type
• E.g., amount, date, time, age
 Fields themselves may be fixed length or
variable length
 Variable length fields can be mixed into one
record:
• Separator characters or length fields are
needed so that the record can be “parsed.”

9
 Blocking
 Blocking:
• Refers to storing a number of records in one
block on the disk.
 Blocking factor (bfr) refers to the number of
records per block.
 There may be empty space in a block if an
integral number of records do not fit in one
block.
 Spanned Records:
• Refers to records that exceed the size of one or
more blocks and hence span a number of
blocks.
10
 Files of Records
 A file is a sequence of records, where each record is a
collection of data values (or data items).
 A file descriptor (or file header) includes information
that describes the file, such as the field names and
their data types, and the addresses of the file blocks
on disk.
 Records are stored on disk blocks.
 The blocking factor bfr for a file is the (average)
number of file records stored in a disk block.
 A file can have fixed-length records or variable-
length records.

11
 Files of Records (contd.)
 File records can be unspanned or spanned
• Unspanned: no record can span two blocks
• Spanned: a record can be stored in more than one
block
 The physical disk blocks that are allocated to hold the
records of a file can be contiguous, linked, or indexed.
 In a file of fixed-length records, all records have the
same format. Usually, unspanned blocking is used with
such files.
 Files of variable-length records require additional
information to be stored in each record, such as
separator characters and field types.
• Usually spanned blocking is used with such files.

12
 Operation on Files
 Typical file operations include:
• OPEN: Readies the file for access, and associates a pointer that will refer
to a current file record at each point in time.
• FIND: Searches for the first file record that satisfies a certain condition,
and makes it the current file record.
• FINDNEXT: Searches for the next file record (from the current record)
that satisfies a certain condition, and makes it the current file record.
• READ: Reads the current file record into a program variable.
• INSERT: Inserts a new record into the file & makes it the current file
record.
• DELETE: Removes the current file record from the file, usually by
marking the record to indicate that it is no longer valid.
• MODIFY: Changes the values of some fields of the current file record.
• CLOSE: Terminates access to the file.
• REORGANIZE: Reorganizes the file records.
• For example, the records marked deleted are physically removed from
the file or a new organization of the file records is created.
• READ_ORDERED: Read the file blocks in order of a specific field of the
file.

13
 Unordered Files
 Also called a heap or a pile file.
 New records are inserted at the end of the file.
 A linear search through the file records is
necessary to search for a record.
• This requires reading and searching half the file
blocks on the average, and is hence quite
expensive.
 Record insertion is quite efficient.
 Reading the records in order of a particular
field requires sorting the file records.

14
 Ordered Files
 Also called a sequential file.
 File records are kept sorted by the values of an
ordering field.
 Insertion is expensive: records must be inserted in
the correct order.
• It is common to keep a separate unordered overflow (or transaction)
file for new records to improve insertion efficiency; this is periodically
merged with the main ordered file.
 A binary search can be used to search for a record
on its ordering field value.
• This requires reading and searching log2 of the file blocks on the
average, an improvement over linear search.
 Reading the records in order of the ordering field is
quite efficient.
15
Ordered Files
(contd.)

16
 Average Access Times
 The following table shows the average access
time to access a specific record for a given
type of file

17
 Hashed Files
 Hashing for disk files is called External Hashing
 The file blocks are divided into M equal-sized
buckets, numbered bucket0, bucket1, ..., bucketM-1.
• Typically, a bucket corresponds to one (or a fixed number of) disk
block.
 One of the file fields is designated to be the hash
key of the file.
 The record with hash key value K is stored in bucket
i, where i=h(K), and h is the hashing function.
 Search is very efficient on the hash key.
 Collisions occur when a new record hashes to a
bucket that is already full.
• An overflow file is kept for storing such records.
• Overflow records that hash to each bucket can be linked together.
18
Hashed Files (contd.)

19
 Hashed Files (contd.)
 To reduce overflow records, a hash file is
typically kept 70-80% full.
 The hash function h should distribute the
records uniformly among the buckets
• Otherwise, search time will be increased
because many overflow records will exist.
 Main disadvantages of static external hashing:
• Fixed number of buckets M is a problem if the
number of records in the file grows or shrinks.
• Ordered access on the hash key is quite
inefficient (requires sorting the records).

20
Hashed Files - Overflow handling

21
 Parallelizing Disk Access using RAID
Technology.
 Secondary storage technology must take steps
to keep up in performance and reliability with
processor technology.
 A major advance in secondary storage
technology is represented by the development
of RAID, which originally stood for Redundant
Arrays of Inexpensive Disks.
 The main goal of RAID is to even out the
widely different rates of performance
improvement of disks against those in memory
and microprocessors.

22
 RAID Technology (contd.)

 A natural solution is a large array of small

independent disks acting as a single higher-
performance logical disk.
 A concept called data striping is used, which
utilizes parallelism to improve disk performance.
 Data striping distributes data transparently over
multiple disks to make them appear as a single
large, fast disk.

23
Use of RAID
Technology (contd.)

24
 Storage Area Networks
 The demand for higher storage has risen
considerably in recent times.
 Organizations have a need to move from a static
fixed data center oriented operation to a more
flexible and dynamic infrastructure for information
processing.
 Thus they are moving to a concept of Storage Area
Networks (SANs).
• In a SAN, online storage peripherals are configured as nodes
on a high-speed network and can be attached and detached
from servers in a very flexible manner.
 This allows storage systems to be placed at longer
distances from the servers and provide different
performance and connectivity options.
25
 Storage Area Networks (contd.)
 Advantages of SANs are:
• Flexible many-to-many connectivity among servers and
storage devices using fiber channel hubs and switches.
• Up to 10km separation between a server and a storage
system using appropriate fiber optic cables.
• Better isolation capabilities allowing non-disruptive addition of
new peripherals and servers.
 SANs face the problem of combining storage options
from multiple vendors and dealing with evolving
standards of storage management software and
hardware.

26
 Outline
 Disk Storage, Basic File Structures, and Hashing
• Disk Storage Devices
• Files of Records
• Operations on Files
• Unordered Files
• Ordered Files
• Hashed Files
• RAID Technology
 Indexing Structures for Files
• Types of Single-level Ordered Indexes
• Multilevel Indexes
• Dynamic Multilevel Indexes Using B-Trees and B+-Trees
• Indexes on Multiple Keys

27
 Indexes as Access Paths
 A single-level index is an auxiliary file that
makes it more efficient to search for a record in
the data file.
 The index is usually specified on one field of
the file (although it could be specified on
several fields)
 One form of an index is a file of entries <field
value, pointer to record>, which is ordered by
field value
 The index is called an access path on the field.

28
 Indexes as Access Paths (contd.)
 The index file usually occupies considerably
less disk blocks than the data file because its
entries are much smaller
 A binary search on the index yields a pointer to
the file record
 Indexes can also be characterized as dense or
sparse
• A dense index has an index entry for every search key
value (and hence every record) in the data file.
• A sparse (or nondense) index, on the other hand, has
index entries for only some of the search values

29
 Types of Single-Level Indexes
 Primary Index
• Defined on an ordered data file
• The data file is ordered on a key field
• Includes one index entry for each block in the data
file; the index entry has the key field value for the first
record in the block, which is called the block anchor
• A similar scheme can use the last record in a block.
• A primary index is a nondense (sparse) index, since it
includes an entry for each disk block of the data file
and the keys of its anchor record rather than for
every search value.

30
Primary index on the ordering key field

31
 Types of Single-Level Indexes
 Example: Given the following data file:
EMPLOYEE(NAME,SSN, ADDRESS,JOB,SAL,... )
 Suppose that:
• record size: R= 150 bytes
• block size: B= 512 bytes
• Number of records: r = 30000 records
 Then, we get:
• blocking factor Bfr = (B/R) = (512/150) = 3
records/block
• number of file blocks b= (r/Bfr) = (30000/3) =10000
blocks

32
 Types of Single-Level Indexes
 For a primary index on the ordering key field SSN,
assume the field size VSSN= 9 bytes and the block pointer
size P = 6 bytes. Then:
• index entry size RI=(VSSN+ P)=(9+6)=15 bytes
• index blocking factor BfrI= (B/RI) = (512/15) =34
entries/block
• number of index blocks bI= (b/BfrI) = (10000/34) = 295
blocks
• binary search needs log2bI= log2295= 9 block accesses
• To search for a record using the index, we need one
additional block access to the data file for a
total of 9+1 = 10 block accesses
 This is compared to an average cost of:
• Linear search:(b/2)= 10000/2 = 5000 block accesses
• The binary search: log2b= log210000 =14 block accesses
33
 Types of Single-Level Indexes
 Clustering Index
• Defined on an ordered data file
• The data file is ordered on a non-key field unlike
primary index, which requires that the ordering field
of the data file have a distinct value for each record.
• Includes one index entry for each distinct value of
the field; the index entry points to the first data block
that contains records with that field value.
• It is another example of nondense index where
Insertion and Deletion is relatively straightforward
with a clustering index.

34
A Clustering Index Example

 FIGURE 14.2
A clustering
index on the
DEPTNUMBER
ordering non-key
field of an
EMPLOYEE file.

35
Another Clustering Index Example

36
 Types of Single-Level Indexes
 Secondary Index
• A secondary index provides a secondary means of
accessing a file for which some primary access
already exists.
• The secondary index may be on a field which is a
candidate key and has a unique value in every
record, or a non-key with duplicate values.
• The index is an ordered file with two fields.
• The first field is of the same data type as some non-
ordering field of the data file that is an indexing field.
• The second field is either a block pointer or a record
pointer.
• There can be many secondary indexes (and hence,
indexing fields) for the same file.
• Includes one entry for each record in the data file;
hence, it is a dense index
37
Example of a Dense Secondary Index

38
An Example of a Secondary Index

39
Properties of Index Types

40
 Multi-Level Indexes
 Because a single-level index is an ordered file, we can
create a primary index to the index itself;
• In this case, the original index file is called the first-level
index and the index to the index is called the second-
level index.
 We can repeat the process, creating a third, fourth, ...,
top level until all entries of the top level fit in one disk
block
 A multi-level index can be created for any type of first-
level index (primary, secondary, clustering) as long as
the first-level index consists of more than one disk
block

41
A Two-level Primary Index

42
 Multi-Level Indexes
 Such a multi-level index is a form of search
tree
• However, insertion and deletion of new index
entries is a severe problem because every level
of the index is an ordered file.

43
A Node in a Search Tree with Pointers
to Subtrees below It

44
FIGURE 14.9
A search tree of order p = 3.

45
 Dynamic Multilevel Indexes Using B-
Trees and B+-Trees
 Most multi-level indexes use B-tree or B+-tree data
structures because of the insertion and deletion
problem
• This leaves space in each tree node (disk block) to allow
for new index entries
 These data structures are variations of search trees
that allow efficient insertion and deletion of new search
values.
 In B-Tree and B+-Tree data structures, each node
corresponds to a disk block
 Each node is kept between half-full and completely full

46
 Dynamic Multilevel Indexes Using B-
Trees and B+-Trees (contd.)
 An insertion into a node that is not full is quite
efficient
• If a node is full the insertion causes a split into
two nodes
 Splitting may propagate to other tree levels
 A deletion is quite efficient if a node does not
become less than half full
 If a deletion causes a node to become less
than half full, it must be merged with
neighboring nodes

47
 Difference between B-tree and B+-tree
 In a B-tree, pointers to data records exist at all
levels of the tree
 In a B+-tree, all pointers to data records exists
at the leaf-level nodes
 A B+-tree can have less levels (or higher
capacity of search values) than the
corresponding B-tree

48
B-tree Structures

49
 The Nodes of a B+-tree

 FIGURE 14.11 The nodes of a B+-tree

• (a) Internal node of a B+-tree with q –1 search values.
• (b) Leaf node of a B+-tree with q – 1 search values and q – 1 data pointers.

50
 Summary
 Data Storage
• Disk Storage Devices
• Files of Records
• Operations on Files
• Unordered Files
• Ordered Files
• Hashed Files
• RAID Technology
 Indexing Structures for Files
• Types of Single-level Ordered Indexes
• Multilevel Indexes
• Dynamic Multilevel Indexes Using B-Trees and B+-Trees
• Indexes on Multiple Keys

51
Consider a disk with block size B = 512 bytes. A
block pointer is P = 6 bytes long, and a record
pointer is PR = 7 bytes long. A file has r = 30,000
EMPLOYEE records of fixed length. Each record
has the following fields: Name (30 bytes), Ssn (9
bytes), Department_code (9 bytes), Address (40
bytes), Phone (10 bytes), Birth_date (8 bytes), Sex
(1 byte), Job_code (4 bytes), and Salary (4 bytes,
real number).An additional byte is used as a
deletion marker.
1. Calculate the record size R in bytes.
2. Calculate the blocking factor bfr and the number
of file blocks b, assuming an unspanned
organization.
53
Consider a disk with block size B = 512 bytes. A block
pointer is P = 6 bytes long, and a record pointer is
PR = 7 bytes long. A file has r = 30,000 EMPLOYEE
records of fixed length. Each record has the following
fields: Name (30 bytes), Ssn (9 bytes),
Department_code (9 bytes), Address (40 bytes),
Phone (10 bytes), Birth_date (8 bytes), Sex (1 byte),
Job_code (4 bytes), and Salary (4 bytes, real
number).An additional byte is used as a deletion
marker.
3. Suppose that the file is ordered by the key field
Ssn Calculate
A. the number of block accesses needed to search for
and retrieve a record from the file—given its Ssn
value
54
Consider a disk with block size B = 512 bytes. A block
pointer is P = 6 bytes long, and a record pointer is
PR = 7 bytes long. A file has r = 30,000 EMPLOYEE
records of fixed length. Each record has the following
fields: Name (30 bytes), Ssn (9 bytes),
Department_code (9 bytes), Address (40 bytes),
Phone (10 bytes), Birth_date (8 bytes), Sex (1 byte),
Job_code (4 bytes), and Salary (4 bytes, real
number).An additional byte is used as a deletion
marker.
4. Suppose that the file is ordered by the key field
Ssn and we want to construct a primary index on Ssn.
Calculate
A. The index blocking factor bfri
B. the number of first-level index entries and the
number of first-level index blocks 55
Consider a disk with block size B = 512 bytes. A block
pointer is P = 6 bytes long, and a record pointer is
PR = 7 bytes long. A file has r = 30,000 EMPLOYEE
records of fixed length. Each record has the following
fields: Name (30 bytes), Ssn (9 bytes),
Department_code (9 bytes), Address (40 bytes),
Phone (10 bytes), Birth_date (8 bytes), Sex (1 byte),
Job_code (4 bytes), and Salary (4 bytes, real
number).An additional byte is used as a deletion
marker.
4. Suppose that the file is ordered by the key field
Ssn and we want to construct a primary index on Ssn.
Calculate
C. the number of block accesses needed to search for
and retrieve a record from the file—given its Ssn
value 56
Consider a disk with block size B = 512 bytes. A block
pointer is P = 6 bytes long, and a record pointer is
PR = 7 bytes long. A file has r = 30,000 EMPLOYEE
records of fixed length. Each record has the following
fields: Name (30 bytes), Ssn (9 bytes),
Department_code (9 bytes), Address (40 bytes),
Phone (10 bytes), Birth_date (8 bytes), Sex (1 byte),
Job_code (4 bytes), and Salary (4 bytes, real
number).An additional byte is used as a deletion
marker.
5. If we make it into a multilevel index (two levels).
A. Calculate the total number of blocks required by
the second index;
B. the number of block accesses needed to
search for and retrieve a record from the file—
given its Ssn value 57