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DBMS

The architecture of a database management system (RDBMS) can be divided into three levels: the external level (user view), conceptual level (representation of the entire database), and internal level (physical storage of data). The external level defines what each user sees based on their needs, while the conceptual level defines the overall structure of the database. The internal level describes how the data is physically stored and organized at the lowest level. Mappings between the levels determine the correspondence between the external/conceptual views and how the conceptual structure maps to the physical storage. This three-level architecture helps achieve data independence.

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Mayur N Malviya
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46 views

DBMS

The architecture of a database management system (RDBMS) can be divided into three levels: the external level (user view), conceptual level (representation of the entire database), and internal level (physical storage of data). The external level defines what each user sees based on their needs, while the conceptual level defines the overall structure of the database. The internal level describes how the data is physically stored and organized at the lowest level. Mappings between the levels determine the correspondence between the external/conceptual views and how the conceptual structure maps to the physical storage. This three-level architecture helps achieve data independence.

Uploaded by

Mayur N Malviya
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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RDBMS : Architecture of a Database Management System

The architecture of a database management system can be broadly divided


into three levels :

a. External level
b. Conceptual level
c. Internal level

The External Level


This is the highest level, one that is closest to the user. It is also called the
user view. The user view is different from the way data is stored in the
database. This view describes only a part of the actual database. Because
each user is not concerned with the entire database, only the part that is
relevant to the user is visible. For example, end users and application
programmers get different external views.

For example, an instructor will view the database as a collection of students


and courses offered by the university. An administrator will view the
database as a collection of records on the stock of course material provided
by the university. The instructor is concerned with only a portion of database
that is relevant to the instructor and the administrator is concerned with only
the portion of database that is relevant to the administrator. These portions
of database, which are viewed, by the instructor and administrator are
reffered as their user’s view or external view.

Each user uses a language to carry out database operations. The application
programmer uses either a conventional third-generation language, such as
COBOL or C, or a fourth-generation language specific to the DBMS, such as
visual FoxPro or MS Access.

The end user uses a query language to access data from the database. A
query language is a combination of three subordinate language :
Data Definition Language (DDL)♣
Data Manipulation Language (DML)♣
Data Control Language (DCL)♣

The data definition language defines and declares the database object, while
the data manipulation language performs operations on these objects. The
data control language is used to control the user’s access to database
objects.

The Conceptual Level


This level comes between the external and the internal levels. The
conceptual level represents the entire database as a whole, and is used by
the DBA. This level is the view of the data “as it really is”. The user’s view of
the data is constrained by the language that they are using. At the
conceptual level, the data is viewed without any of these constraints.

The Internal Level


This level deals with the physical storage of data, and is the lowest level of
the architecture. The internal level describes the physical sequence of the
stored records.
Following is an example of the three levels :

External
Cout << “Emp#” << Employee_Code;
Cout << “Dept#” << DepartmentEmployee_Code;
Cout << “Salary#” << Salary;

Conceptual
Employee
Employee_Code Character 6
Department_Code Character 4
Salary Numeric 5

Internal
Stored Employee Length=18
Prefix Type=Byte(6), offset=0
Emp# type=byte(6), offset=6, index empx
Dept# type=byte(6), offset=12,
Salary type=byte(6), offset=6

Mappings
Mapping determines the correspondence between one level an another.
There are two levels of mapping involved in this architecture. One is
between the external and the conceptual levels, while the other is between
the conceptual and the internal levels. The external-conceptual mapping
determines the correspondence between the conceptual anad the user
views. This specifies how a user views the conceptual data. The conceptual-
internal mapping determines the correspondence between the conceptual
and internal views. It specifies how the conceptual data is stored.

The first step in designing a databse is to define the conceptual level. The
conceptual level is then mapped to the external level. Each user view and
the requirement is taken into consideration. Next, the conceptual-internal
mapping is done. The way data is stored is derived from the conceptual
level. Ths three-level architecture of a DBMS helps achieve data
independence.

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