Unit 1

Database and Database Users

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Introduction of Database

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Outline
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Introduction
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Characteristics of the Database Approach
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Actors on the Scene
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Workers behind the Scene
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Advantages of Using the DBMS Approach

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Data, Information and Knowledge

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Data, Information and Knowledge

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Data
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Any Facts that can be recorded or stored.
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A collection of text, numbers or any symbols with no
meaning
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Has to be processed, or provided with a context, before it can
have meaning.
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Example:
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3, 6, 9, 12
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Cat, dog, rabbit
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161.2, 175.3, 145.1

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Data, Information and Knowledge

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Information
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The result of processing data, usually by computer.
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Processed data to be used in context and have meaning. i.e., Data that has
context and meaning.
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Data has no meaning of its own, it only takes on meaning and becomes
information when it is interpreted.
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When data is processed into sets according to context , it provides
information.
Data + Meaning = Information
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Example:
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3, 6, 9 and 12 are the first four answers in the 3 x table
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cat, dog, rabbit is a list of household pets
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161.2, 175.3, 166.4, 164.7, 169.3 are the heights of 15-year-old students.

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Data, Information and Knowledge (Example)

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Database

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Database is a collection of related data with an
implicit meaning.
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Properties of database
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Represents some aspect of real world, sometimes called the
mini-world or universe of discourse(UoD).
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Logically coherent collection of data with some inherent
meaning.
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Designed, built and populated with data for specific purpose,
i.e., it has an intended group of users and some
per-convinced applications in which these user are interested.

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Database (Definition)

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Database is defined as
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A collection or repository of logically related and relevant
data.
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Having organized structure.
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For a specific purpose.
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Stores similar kinds of data that is organized in
a manner that the information can be derived
from it, modified, data added or deleted it and
used when needed.

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Database (Example)

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Non-computerized database in our daily lives
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Looking for a word in a dictionary
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Finding telephone number from telephone directory (Yellow page).
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Computerized database in our daily lives
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An airline database contains data about airplane, the routes, airline
reservation, airline schedules etc.
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A college database may contain data about the students, faculty,
administrative staff, courses, results etc.
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A database for manufacturing application may contain data about
the production, inventory, supply chain, orders, sales etc.
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A student database may contain data about students, like student
names, student course etc.

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Database Management System (DBMS)

Figure: A bank database management system (DBMS).

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A collection of programs that enables users to
create and maintain a database.
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DBMS is a general-purpose software system
that facilitates the process of defining,
constructing, manipulating and sharing
databases among various users and
application.

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Database Management System (DBMS)

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Defining a database
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Involves specifying the data types, structures and constraints of data to
be stored in the database.
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Constructing a database
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The process of storing the data on some storage medium that is
controlled by DBMS.
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Manipulating a database
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Includes functions such as querying the database to retrieve specific
data, updating the database to reflect changes in the mini-world, and
generating reports from the data.
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Sharing a database
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Allows multiple users and programs to access the database
simultaneously.

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Database System

Figure: Database System

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Database System

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Database and DBMS software together is a
database system.
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Above figure illustrate some concept of
database system.

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Characteristics of the Database Approach

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Self-describing nature of a database system
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Insulation between programs and data, and
data abstraction
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Support of multiple views of the data
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Sharing of data and multi-user transaction
processing

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Characteristics of the Database Approach

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Self-describing nature of a database system
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Database system is self-describing, it not only contains the database
itself, but also a complete definition or description of the database
structure and constraints.
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Definition is stored in the DBMS catalog, information stored in the
catalog is called meta-data(data of data).
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Catalog contains information such as structure of each file, the type
and storage format of each data and various constraints.
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These information is used by the DBMS software or database users if
needed.
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This separation of data and information about the data makes
database system different from the traditional file-based system in
which the data definition is part of the application programs.

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Characteristics of the Database Approach

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Supports multiple views of data
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Supports multiple views of data. i.e., different users have
different perspective towards the same data.
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A view of subset of the database, which is defined and
dedicated for particular users of the system, each view might
contain only data of interest to a user group of users.

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Database Users

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Database users can be divided into
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Those who actually use and control the content i.e., Actor
on the scene.
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Those who enable the database to be developed and DBMS
software to be designed and implemented i.e., Workers
Behind the Scene.

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Actors on the Scene

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People whose jobs involve the day-to-day use
of large database
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Actor on the scene are
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Database Administrators (DBA)
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Database Designers
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End Users
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System analysts and application programmers

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Database Administrators

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Chief administrator, to oversee and manage the
resources in an organization.
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Administering the resource such as database
itself, DBMS and related software is the
responsibility of the database administrator
(DBA).
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Responsible for authorizing access, coordinating,
and monitoring the use of database, acquiring
software and hardware resource as needed.
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Account for the problems such as security
breaches, and poor system response time.

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Database Designers

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Responsible for choosing appropriate structures
to represent, identify the data to be stored and
store this data in the database.
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Communicate and interact with all the database
users in order to understand their requirements
and to create a database design views that meet
the requirements.
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Each view is then analyzed and integrated with
the views of other user groups, so that the final
database must be capable of supporting the
requirements of all user groups.

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End users

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These are the people whose job is to access
database for querying, updating and
generating reports.
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Some categories of end users are:
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Casual end users
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Naive or parametric end users
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Sophisticated end users
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Standalone users

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End Users

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Casual end users
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Typically middle or high-level managers or occasional browsers.
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Access the database occasionally, but they may need different
information each time.
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Naive or parametric end users
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Users such as bank tellers, reservation agents for airlines,
hotels, car rental are the Naive end users.
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Main job is constantly querying and updating database, using
standard types of queries and updates called canned
transactions., they should be carefully programmed and tested.

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End Users

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Sophisticated end users
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Includes engineers, scientists, business analysts and others
who are familiarized with the facilities of DBMS in order to
implement their own applications to meet their
requirements.
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Standalone users
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Maintains personal databases by using ready-made program
packages that provides easy-to-user menu-based or graphics
based interfaces
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Example: the user of a tax package that stores a variety of
personal financial data for tax purposes.

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System Analysts and Application Programmers
(Software Engineers)

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System analysts
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determine the requirements of end users, especially naïve
and parametric end users, and develop specifications for
standard canned transactions.
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Application programmers
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implement these specifications as programs; then they test,
debug, document and maintain these canned transactions
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Such analysts and programmers, commonly referred
to as software developers or software
engineers.

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Workers behind the Scene

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DBMS system designer, typically not interested in the
database content itself. They include the following
categories:
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DBMS system designers and implementer
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Design and implement the DBMS modules and interface as a software package.
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DBMS, consists of many components or modules including modules for
implementing the catalog, query language processing, interface processing,
accessing and buffering data, controlling concurrency and handling data
recovery and security.
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DBMS interface with other system software such as OS and compilers for
various programming languages.
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Tool developers
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Operators and maintenance personnel

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Workers behind the Scene

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DBMS system designer, typically not interested in the
database content itself. They include the following
categories:
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Tool developers
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Design and implement tools, software packages that facilitate database
modeling and design and database system design and improved performance.
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Optional package tools purchased separately, includes package for database
design, performance monitoring, natural language or graphical interfaces,
prototyping, simulation and test data generation
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Operators and maintenance personnel
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System administration personnel
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Responsible for the actual running and maintenance of the hardware and
software environment for the database system.

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Advantages of Using the DBMS Approach

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Controlling redundancy
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Restricting unauthorized access
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Providing persistent storage
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Providing storage structures and search techniques for efficient
query processing
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Providing backup and recovery
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Providing multiple user interfaces
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Enforcing integrity constraints;
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Reduced application development time;
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Flexibility
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Availability of up-to-date information
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Economies of scale

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Data redundancy and inconsistency

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Controlling redundancy

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Redundancy means storing the same data multiples times that lead to the
several problems.
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Traditional file system cannot control redundancy of data as each user
defines and maintains the needed files for a specific application to run.
There is the possibility that two user are maintaining the same data files
for different applications.
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Redundancy leads to the
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duplication of effort i.e. when multiple copies of a data need to be updated
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data inconsistency (while updating the database)
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wastage of storage space.
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The change made by one user does not reflect in the files used by another
user, that leads to the inconsistency of data.
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DBMS controls redundancy by maintaining a single repository of data that is
defined once and is accessed by many users, as there is no or less
redundancy, data remains consistent.

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Restricting unauthorized access

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DBMS provides a security and authorization
subsystem, which the DBA uses to create accounts
and to specify account restrictions.
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Since multiple user share a large database, most
users will not be authorized to access all
information in the database.
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For example, financial data is often considered
confidential, and only authorized persons are
allowed to access such data.
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Some user may only be permitted to retrieve data,
where as others are allowed to retrieve and update.

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Providing persistent storage

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Object-oriented database systems uses the persistent
storage for program objects and data.
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In OOP paradigm value of the program variables or objects
are discarded once a program terminates (called transient
object), however OOP database they can be store in the
permanent files, which often involves converting these
complex structure into a format suitable for file storage.
furthermore, they can be reused.
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A complex object in C++ can be stored permanently in an
OO DBMS. Such object is said to be persistent object, since
it survive the termination of program execution and can
later be directly retrieved by another C++ program.

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 Providing Storage Structures and Search
Techniques for Efficient Query Processing

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DBMS must provide capabilities for efficiently
executing queries and updates.
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The DBMS maintains indexes (typically in the
form of trees and hash tables) that are utilized
to improve the execution time of queries and
updates and is the responsibility of the DBA.
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The query processing and optimization module
is responsible for choosing an efficient query
execution plan for each query submitted to the
system.

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Providing Backup and Recovery

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The backup and recovery subsystem of DBMS
approach must provide facilities for backup,
recovering from hardware or software failures.
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For example: if the computer system fails in
the middle of transaction, the recovery system
is responsible for making sure that the
database is restored in the previous state. Or
recovery system should ensure the transaction
is resumed from the point at which it was
interrupted.

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Providing Multiple User Interfaces

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Depending upon the varying level of technical
knowledge use of database, DBMS should
provide a variety of user interface.
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For example, query languages for casual users,
programming language interfaces for
application programmers, forms and/or
command codes for parametric users, menu-
driven interfaces for stand-alone users.

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Enforcing Integrity Constraints

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Most database applications have certain
integrity constraints that must hold for the data.
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A DBMS should provide capabilities for defining
and enforcing these constraints. The most
simplest type of integrity constraint involves
specifying a data type for each data item.
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Another kind of constraint is referential
integrity, which says that if the database
includes an entity that refers to another one, the
latter entity must exist in the database.

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Database Applications

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Your Job...

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Assignment - 1

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Define the following terms:data, information,
database, DBMS, database system, information,
program-data independence, persistent object,
meta-data,and transaction-processing application.
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Discuss the main characteristics of the database
approach and how it differs from traditional file
systems.
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Discuss the capabilities that should be provided
by a DBMS.
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What are the responsibilities of the DBA and the
database designers?

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Other References

https://www.cambridgeinternational.org/Images
/285017-data-information-and-knowledge.pdf
Database Design – 2nd Edition by Adrienne Warr
and Nelson Eng is used under a CC BY 4.0
International License.
http://www.navodayaengg.in/wp-content/upload
s/2015/09/L4-Advantages-of-using-DBMS-approa
ch.pdf
https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/bbms-advantag
es-dbms-file-system/

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