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 Data is raw facts, that is the facts that have not been processed to

reveal their meaning. Hence cannot be used for decision making

 Information – is the result of processing data to reveal its meaning.

Data processing can be as simple as organizing data to reveal

patterns or as complex as making forecasts or drawing inferences
using statistical modeling. To reveal meaning, the information
requires context.
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 Key points:

 Data constitute the building blocks of information.

 Information is produced by processing data.

 Information is used to reveal the meaning of data.

 Accurate, relevant, and timely information is the key to good

decision-making.

 Good decision-making is the key to organizational survival in

a global environment. 3
 Before Computerization the data/information was available only in

papers/documents.

 The need to store massive data and retrieve it faster necessitated

more efficient methods.

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 In order to be successful, an organization must come up

with systems for handling core business tasks.

 Historically, such systems were often manual, paper-and-

pencil systems. The papers within these systems were

organized in order to facilitate the expected use of the
data. Typically, this was accomplished through a system
of file folders and filing cabinets.
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 As long as the data collection was relatively small and an

organization’s business users had few reporting requirements,

the manual system served its role well as a data repository.

 However, as organizations grew and as reporting requirements

became more complex, keeping track of data in a manual file

system became more difficult. Therefore, companies looked to
computer technology for help.
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 Generating reports from manual file systems was slow and

cumbersome. In fact, some business managers faced

government-imposed reporting requirements that required
weeks of intensive effort each quarter, even when a well-
designed manual system was used.

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 Computer-based systems that would track data and produce
required reports were created.

 Initially, the computer files within the file system were similar to
the manual files.

 The description of computer files requires a specialized

vocabulary. Every discipline develops its own jargon to enable
its practitioners to communicate clearly.
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 When business users wanted data from the computerized file, they

sent requests for the data to the data processing (DP) specialist.

 For each request, the DP specialist had to create programs to

retrieve the data from the file, manipulate it in whatever manner the
user had requested, and present it as a printed report.

 If a request was for a report that had been previously run, the DP

specialist could rerun the existing program and provide the

printed results to the user. 9
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 The continued use of and demand for a computerized

file exposed some of its major weaknesses that

necessitated a more efficient approach to data storage
and retrieval.

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 Data redundancy exists when the same data are stored

unnecessarily at different places.

 Poor data security: Having multiple copies of data increases the

chances for a copy of the data to be susceptible to unauthorized

access.

 Data inconsistency: Data inconsistency exists when different and

conflicting versions of the same data appear in different places.

 Data is Unstructured- Data not organized in columns and rows. 12

 High maintenance costs

 Data dependence

 Ensuring data consistency and controlling access to

data (concurrent access problematic)

 Difficult to understand by new developers

 Difficulties in developing new applications

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 A database (DB) is a collection of structured (organized), interrelated

information units (objects).

 An information unit is a package of information at various levels of granularity.

 An information unit could be as simple as a string of letters forming the name

of an experimenter or a data value collected from an experiment. It could also

be as complex as the protocol of an experiment, a published paper, the image
of a rat brain, the audio clip of a speech, or the video clip of an experiment in a
laboratory.

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 Every database is a model of some real-world system.

 At all times, the contents of a database are intended to represent a snapshot

of the state of an application environment, and each change to the database

should reflect an event (or sequence of events).

 A database can be of any size and of varying complexity. For example, a

database can contain the information of only a few hundred people working
on the same project but It could also contain the information of a bank, an
airline company, or data collected from scientific experiments.
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 A database management system (DBMS) is a generalized collection

of integrated mechanisms and tools to support the definition,

manipulation, and control of databases for a variety of application
environments.

 The goal of a DBMS is to simplify the storing and accessing of data.

To this purpose, DBMSs provide facilities that serve the most

common operations performed on data.
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 Some examples of DBMS software

 SQL Server (from Microsoft)

 Oracle (from Oracle Corporation)

 MySQL (from Sun)

 DB2 (from IBM)

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 The term database system refers to an organization of

components that define and regulate the collection,

storage, management, and use of data within a database
environment.

 Example of database include: A phone book, a list of

products in a shop.
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19
 Database vs. File System
 Coordinates Both Physical and  Coordinates Only the Physical Access to

Logical Access to the Data the Data

 Data are Shared by All Programs  Data Written by One Program May Not

Authorized to Have Access to It Be Readable by Another Program

 Flexible Access to Data (i.e.,  Pre-determined Access to Data (I.E.,

Queries) Compiled Programs)

 Multiple Users Accessing the  No Two Programs Can Concurrently

Same Data at the Same Time Access the Same File

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 Banks

 Hotels

 Hospitals

 Schools and colleges

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 Data dictionary management: The DBMS stores definitions of the data

elements and their relationships in a data dictionary.

 Data storage management: The DBMS creates and manages structures

known as tables required for data storage.

 Security management: The DBMS creates a security system that enforces

user security and data privacy.

 Multiuser access control: DBMS provides a platform for different users to

access the database.

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 Data integrity management: The DBMS promotes and enforces

integrity rules, thus minimizing data redundancy and maximizing data

consistency.

 Database Query Management: The DBMS provides facilities to extract

specified data from a database table.

 Database communication interfaces: DBMSs accept end-user

requests via multiple, different network environments.

 Backup and recovery management: The DBMS provides backup and data
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recovery to ensure data safety and integrity.
 Control of data redundancy  Improved data security

 Data consistency  Improved data accessibility and

 Multipurpose use of data

responsiveness

 Increased productivity
 Sharing of data,

 Improved maintenance through

 Enforcement of standards
data independence
 Economy of scale
 Increased concurrency
 Improved backup and recovery
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services.
 Complexity (implementation, use, and maintenance)

 Costly:

• Acquisition and maintenance

• Additional hardware costs

• Cost of data conversion.

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App 1 App 2

DBMS

DB

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 From a general management point of view, the database system

environment is composed of five major parts that is:

 Hardware

 Software – DBMS

 Data

 Procedures

 Users 27
 Hardware; These are secondary storage on which the database

physically resides, together with the associated I/O devices,

device controllers, etc.

 Hardware refers to all of the system’s physical devices; for

example, computers (PCs, workstations, servers), storage devices,

printers, network devices (hubs, switches, routers, fiber optics),
and other devices (automated teller machines, ID readers etc).
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 Software; Comprises the DBMS software and application

programs as well as the operating system and network

software(if DBMS is being used over a network).

 Examples of software needed

 Operating system software

 DBMS software
 Application programs

 Utilities. 29
 Data; The data in the database will be expected to be both

integrated and shared particularly on multi-user systems

 Integration - The database may be thought of as a unification of

several otherwise distinct files, with any redundancy among these

files eliminated.

 Shared - individual pieces of data in the database may be shared

among several different users.

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 Procedures; Instruction and rules that govern the

design and use of databases e.g. starting and

stopping the database, backup and recovery
services.

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 Users; This component includes all people who use the database
system. On the basis of primary job functions, types of users can be
identified in a database system as:

 Database administrators

 Database designers

 System analysts

 Programmers

 End users.
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 Database Designers - designs conceptual and logical database

 Application Developers - Write application programs that use

the database.

 End user - interacts with the system by using Query Languages

etc.

 Data and Database Administrator

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 Data Administrator – a business manager responsible for

controlling the overall corporate data resources.

 Database Administrator (DBA) - a technical person responsible

for the development of the system.

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 Departments:

 Students

 Course

 Section

 Grades

 Prerequisites
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 DBMS architecture describes the structure and how the users

are connected to a specific database system.

 It also affects the performance of the database as it helps to

design, develop, implement, and maintain the database

management system.

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 Centralized architecture

 Client-server architecture

 Distributed

 Stand-alone

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 In the past, the computer industry was ruled by mainframes;

large, powerful systems with storage and data processing

capacity

 Users communicated with the mainframe through dumb

terminals. Terminals that did not process data on their own.

 This architecture is known as centralized architecture.

 In the client/server, the main computer called the server is

accessible via a network LAN/WAN.

 The server is accessed by an active terminal e.g. PC, mobile

phone known as client.

 The main difference between client/server and centralized is

that the client is capable of thinking(process) on its own.

 There is no dedicated server.

 All computers connected in the network have equal capacity

to serve and to be served.

 It is implemented using web services.

 American National Standards Institute (ANSI) Standards Planning and

Requirements Committee (SPARC) defined a three level framework

for data modeling based on degrees of data abstraction

 Levels of abstraction:

– The external model

– The conceptual model

– The internal model

– The physical model

 It is the end users’ view of the data environment.

 Companies are generally divided into several business units,

such as sales, finance, and marketing.

 Each business unit is subject to specific constraints and

requirements, and each one uses a data subset of the overall

data in the organization.

 The external model is hardware and software independent.

 Having identified the external views, a conceptual model is used, to
integrate all external views into a single view. The conceptual model
represents a global view of the entire database as viewed by the entire
organization.

 An Entity Relation Diagram (ERD) is used to graphically represent the

conceptual schema.

 Advantages:
– It provides a relatively easily understood bird’s-eye view of the data environment.

– The conceptual model is independent of both software and hardware.

 The internal model is the representation of the database as “seen” by

the DBMS.

 The internal model requires the designer to match the conceptual

model’s characteristics and constraints to those of the selected

implementation model.

 An internal schema depicts a specific representation of an internal

model, using the database constructs (e.g. SQL) supported by the

chosen database.

 The internal model is software dependent but hardware independent.

 The physical model operates at the lowest level of abstraction,
describing the way data are saved on storage media such as
disks or tapes.

 The physical model requires the definition of both the physical

storage devices and the (physical) access methods required to
reach the data within those storage devices.

 It is implemented using a system flowchart.

 It is both software and hardware dependent.