Relational Database

Management Systems

Ashish Kumar
Dept. of CSE
Manipal University Jaipur

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Different database users
Users are differentiated by the way they expect to
interact with the system.
Application programmers – interact with system
through DML calls. They are computer professionals
who write application programs.
Sophisticated users – form requests in a database
query language.
Specialized users – write specialized database
applications that do not fit into the traditional data
processing framework.
Naïve users – invoke one of the permanent
application programs that have been written
previously. They may also simply read reports
generated from the database.
 E.g. people accessing database over the web, bank2
Different database users
Database Administrator (DBA) 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:
 Schema definition.
 Storage structure and access method definition.
 Schema and physical organization modification.
 Granting user authority to access the database.
 Specifying integrity constraints.
 Acting as liaison with users.
 Monitoring performance and responding to changes
in requirements. 3
List of important commercially available DBMSs
According to DB-Engines, the most popular systems
are Oracle, MySQL, Microsoft SQL Server,
PostgreSQL and IBM DB2.

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Comparison of RDBMS

https://en.wikipedia.org/
wiki/
Comparison_of_relational_d
atabase_management_syste
ms

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RDBMS Characteristics
 Real-world entity: A modern DBMS is more realistic and
uses real-world entities to design its architecture. It uses
the behavior and attributes too. For example, a school
database may use students as an entity and their age as an
attribute.
 Relation-based tables: DBMS allows entities and
relations among them to form tables. A user can
understand the architecture of a database just by looking
at the table names.
 Isolation of data and application: A database system is
entirely different than its data. A database is an active
entity, whereas data is said to be passive, on which the
database works and organizes. DBMS also stores metadata,
which is data about data, to ease its own process.
 Less redundancy: DBMS follows the rules of
normalization, which splits a relation when any of its
attributes is having redundancy in values. Normalization is6
RDBMS Characteristics
 Consistency: Consistency is a state where every relation in
a database remains consistent. There exist methods and
techniques, which can detect attempt of leaving database
in inconsistent state. A DBMS can provide greater
consistency as compared to earlier forms of data storing
applications like file-processing systems.
 Query Language: DBMS is equipped with query language,
which makes it more efficient to retrieve and manipulate
data. A user can apply as many and as different filtering
options as required to retrieve a set of data. Traditionally it
was not possible where file-processing system was used.
 ACID Properties: DBMS follows the concepts of Atomicity,
Consistency, Isolation, and Durability (normally shortened
as ACID). These concepts are applied on transactions,
which manipulate data in a database. ACID properties help
the database stay healthy in multi-transactional
environments and in case of failure. 7
RDBMS Characteristics
 Multiuser and Concurrent Access: DBMS supports
multi-user environment and allows them to access and
manipulate data in parallel. Though there are restrictions
on transactions when users attempt to handle the same
data item, but users are always unaware of them.
 Multiple views: DBMS offers multiple views for different
users. A user who is in the Sales department will have a
different view of database than a person working in the
Production department. This feature enables the users to
have a concentrate view of the database according to their
requirements.
 Security: Features like multiple views offer security to
some extent where users are unable to access data of other
users and departments. DBMS offers methods to impose
constraints while entering data into the database and
retrieving the same at a later stage. DBMS offers many
different levels of security features, which enables multiple8
3-tier Architecture
Database (Data) Tier: At this tier, the
database resides along with its query
processing languages. We also have the
relations that define the data and their
constraints at this level.
Application (Middle) Tier: At this tier reside
the application server and the programs that
access the database. For a user, this
application tier presents an abstracted view of
the database. End-users are unaware of any
existence of the database beyond the
application. At the other end, the database tier
is not aware of any other user beyond the
application tier. Hence, the application layer
sits in the middle and acts as a mediator
between the end-user and the database.
User (Presentation) Tier: End-users operate
on this tier and they know nothing about any
existence of the database beyond this layer. At
this layer, multiple views of the database 9can
Database Schema
 A database schema is the skeleton structure that
represents the logical view of the entire database. It
defines how the data is organized and how the relations
among them are associated. It formulates all the
constraints that are to be applied on the data.
 A database schema defines its entities and the
relationship among them. It contains a descriptive detail
of the database, which can be depicted by means of schema
diagrams. It’s the database designers who design the
schema to help programmers understand the database and
make it useful.
 Physical Database Schema: This schema pertains to the
actual storage of data and its form of storage like files,
indices, etc. It defines how the data will be stored in a
secondary storage.
 Logical Database Schema: This schema defines all the
logical constraints that need to be applied on the data10
Database Schema

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Database Instance
It is important that we distinguish these two
terms individually. Database schema is the
skeleton of database. It is designed when the
database doesn't exist at all. Once the database is
operational, it is very difficult to make any
changes to it. A database schema does not
contain any data or information.
A database instance is a state of operational
database with data at any given time. It
contains a snapshot of the database. Database
instances tend to change with time. A DBMS
ensures that its every instance (state) is in a valid
state, by diligently following all the validations,
constraints, and conditions that the database 12
Data Independence
 A database system normally
contains a lot of data in
addition to users’ data. For
example, it stores data
about data, known as
metadata, to locate and
retrieve data easily. It is
rather difficult to modify or
update a set of metadata
once it is stored in the
database. But as a DBMS
expands, it needs to change
over time to satisfy the
requirements of the users. If
the entire data is
dependent, it would become
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a tedious and highly
Data Independence
Logical Data Independence
 Logical data is data about database, that is, it stores
information about how data is managed inside. For
example, a table (relation) stored in the database and all its
constraints applied on that relation.
 Logical data independence is a kind of mechanism, which
liberalizes itself from actual data stored on the disk. If we
do some changes on table format, it should not change the
data residing on the disk.
Physical Data Independence
 All the schemas are logical, and the actual data is stored in
bit format on the disk. Physical data independence is the
power to change the physical data without impacting the
schema or logical data.
 For example, in case we want to change or upgrade the
storage system itself — suppose we want to replace hard-
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Thank You

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