Chapter 1

Databases and
Database Users

Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Pearson Addison-Wesley

 Introduction
 Database
 Collection of related data
• Known facts that can be recorded and that have
implicit meaning
 Implicit properties:
• Represents some aspect of the real world:
Miniworld or universe of discourse (UoD)
• Logically coherent collection of data with inherent
meaning
• Built for a specific purpose

Copyright © 2011 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe

 Database management system
(DBMS)
 Database management system (DBMS): Collection of programs Enables
users to create and maintain a database;
 Defining a database: Specify the data types, structures, and constraints of the data to
be stored
• Meta-data: Database definition or descriptive information; Stored by the DBMS in the form of a
database catalog or dictionary
 Constructing: storing the data on some storage medium
 Manipulating a database
• Query and update the database miniworld
• Generate reports
 Sharing a database
• Allow multiple users and programs to access the database simultaneously
 Application program: Accesses database by sending queries to DBMS
• Query: Causes some data to be retrieved
• Transaction: May cause some data to be read and some data to be written into the database
 Protection includes:
• System protection: against hardware or software malfunction
• Security protection: against unauthorized or malicious access
 Maintain the database system
• Allow the system to evolve as requirements change over time

Database + DBMS = database system

Copyright © 2011 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe
Copyright © 2011 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe
 An Example
 UNIVERSITY database
 Information concerning students, courses, and
grades in a university environment
 Data records
 STUDENT
 COURSE
 SECTION
 GRADE_REPORT
 PREREQUISITE
Copyright © 2011 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe
Copyright © 2011 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe
 An Example (cont'd.)
 Specify structure of records of each file by specifying data type for each data element
 String of alphabetic characters
 Integer
 Etc.
 Construct UNIVERSITY database
 Store data to represent each student, course, section, grade report, and prerequisite as a record in
appropriate file
 Relationships among the records
 Records in STUDENT file is related to records in GRADE_REPORT
 Manipulation involves querying and updating
 Examples of queries:
• Retrieve the transcript
• List the names of students who took the section of the ‘Database’ course offered in fall 2008 and their grades in
that section
• List the prerequisites of the ‘Database’ course
 Examples of updates:
• Change the class of ‘Smith’ to sophomore
• Create a new section for the ‘Database’ course for this semester
• Enter a grade of ‘A’ for ‘Smith’ in the ‘Database’ section of last semester

Copyright © 2011 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe

 An Example (cont'd.)
 Phases for designing a database:
 Requirements specification and analysis
 Conceptual design
 Logical design
 Physical design

Copyright © 2011 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe

 Characteristics of the Database
Approach
 File vs. database
 Traditional file processing
• Each user defines and implements the files needed
for a specific software application –duplicate efforts
• Waste storage space and in redundant efforts to
maintain common up to date data
• Data may become inconsistent
 Database approach: Single repository
maintains data that is defined once and then
accessed by various users

Copyright © 2011 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe

 Characteristics of the Database
Approach (cont'd.)
 Self-Describing Nature of a Database
System
 Database system contains complete definition
of structure and constraints
• Meta-data: information stored in the catalog
Describes structure of the database
 Database catalog used by:
• DBMS software
• Database users who need information about
database structure
 Copyright © 2011 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe
Copyright © 2011 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe
 Characteristics of the Database
Approach (cont'd.)
 Insulation Between Programs and Data
 Program-data independence
• Structure of data files is stored in DBMS catalog separately from access programs
• Program-operation independence
 Operations specified in two parts:
• Interface includes operation name and data types of its arguments
• Implementation can be changed without affecting the interface
 Data Abstraction: Allows program-data independence and program-
operation independence
• DBMS provide Conceptual representation of data
• Does not include details of how data is stored or how operations are implemented
• Data model is Type of data abstraction used to provide conceptual representation
• Data model uses logical concepts, such as objects, their properties and their relationships
• Data model hides storage and implementation details that are not of interest to most
database users

Copyright © 2011 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe

Copyright © 2011 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe
 Characteristics of the Database
Approach (cont'd.)
 Support of Multiple Views of the Data
 View
• Subset of the database
• Contains virtual data derived from the database
files but is not explicitly stored
 Multiuser DBMS
• Users have a variety of distinct applications
• Must provide facilities for defining multiple views

Copyright © 2011 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe

Copyright © 2011 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe
 Characteristics of the Database
Approach (cont'd.)
 Sharing of Data and Multiuser Transaction Processing
 Allow multiple users to access the database at the same time
 Concurrency control software
• Ensure that several users trying to update the same data do so in a controlled
manner
• Result of the updates is correct
 Online transaction processing (OLTP) application
• Multiple agents access to flight ticket for reservation
 Transaction: is an executing program or process that includes one
or more database accesses.
• Central to many database applications
• Executing program or process that includes one or more database
• Transaction properties:
• Isolation property: Each transaction appears to execute in isolation from other
transactions
• Atomicity property: Either all the database operations in a transaction are executed or
none are

Copyright © 2011 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe

 Actors on the Scene
 Database administrators (DBA) are responsible for:
 Authorizing access to the database
 Coordinating and monitoring its use
 Acquiring software and hardware resources
 Database designers are responsible for:
 Identifying the data to be stored
 Choosing appropriate structures to represent and store this data
 System analysts: Determine requirements of end users, and develop
specifications fro standard canned transactions that meet these requirements.
 Application programmers: Implement these specifications as programs.
 End users: People whose jobs require access to the database
 Casual end users
 Naive or parametric end users
• Reservation agents; bank teller
 Sophisticated end users
 Standalone users

Copyright © 2011 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe

 Workers behind the Scene
 DBMS system designers and
implementers
 Design and implement the DBMS modules and
interfaces as a software package
 Tool developers
 Design and implement tools
 Operators and maintenance personnel
 Responsible for running and maintenance of
hardware and software environment for
database system
Copyright © 2011 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe
Advantages of Using the DBMS
Approach
 Controlling redundancy
 Redundancy: storing data multiple times:
• Redundancy is controlled when the DBMS ensures
that multiple copies of the same data are consistent
• If the DBMS has no control over this, we have
uncontrolled redundancy.
 Data normalization: store each logical data
item in only one place
 Denormalization: Sometimes necessary to
use controlled redundancy to improve the
performance of queries

Copyright © 2011 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe

Copyright © 2011 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe
Advantages of Using the DBMS
Approach
 Restricting unauthorized access
 Security and authorization subsystem
 Privileged software
 Providing persistent storage for program
objects
 Complex object in C++ can be stored
permanently in an object-oriented DBMS
 Impedance mismatch problem
• Object-oriented database systems typically offer
data structure compatibility

Copyright © 2011 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe

 Advantages of Using the DBMS
Approach (cont'd.)
 Providing storage structures and search techniques for
efficient query processing
 Indexes
 Buffering and caching
 Query processing and optimization
 Providing backup and recovery
 Backup and recovery subsystem of the DBMS is
responsible for recovery
 Providing multiple user interfaces
 Graphical user interfaces (GUIs)
 Representing complex relationships among data
 May include numerous varieties of data that are interrelated
in many ways

Copyright © 2011 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe

Advantages of Using the DBMS
Approach (cont'd.)
 Enforcing integrity constraints
 Referential integrity constraint
• Every section record must be related to a course
record
 Key or uniqueness constraint
• Every course record must have a unique value for
Course_number
 Business rules
 Inherent rules of the data model

Copyright © 2011 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe

 Advantages of Using the DBMS
Approach (cont'd.)
 Permitting inferencing and actions using rules
 Deductive database systems
• Provide capabilities for defining deduction rules
• Inference new information from the stored database facts
 Trigger: a form of a rule activated by updates
to the table, which results in performing
additional operations to some other tables.
 Stored procedures
• More involved procedures to enforce rules
• Active database system: provide active rules that
can automatically initiate actions when certain
events and condition occur

Copyright © 2011 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe

 Advantages of Using the DBMS
Approach (cont'd.)
 Additional implications of using the
database approach
 Potential for enforcing standards
 Reduced application development time
 Flexibility
 Availability of up-to-date information
 Economies of scale

Copyright © 2011 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe

 A Brief History of Database
Applications
 Early database applications using
hierarchical and network systems
 Large numbers of records of similar structure
 Providing data abstraction and application
flexibility with relational databases
 Separates physical storage of data from its
conceptual representation
 Provides a mathematical foundation for data
representation and querying

Copyright © 2011 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe

 A Brief History of Database
Applications (cont'd.)
 Object-oriented applications and the need
for more complex databases
 Used in specialized applications: engineering
design, multimedia publishing, and
manufacturing systems
 Interchanging data on the Web for e-
commerce using XML
 Extended markup language (XML) primary
standard for interchanging data among various
types of databases and Web pages
Copyright © 2011 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe
 A Brief History of Database
Applications (cont'd.)
 Extending database capabilities for new
applications
 Extensions to better support specialized
requirements for applications
 Enterprise resource planning (ERP)
 Customer relationship management (CRM)

 Databases versus information retrieval

 Information retrieval (IR)
• Deals with books, manuscripts, and various forms of
library-based articles
Copyright © 2011 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe
 When Not to Use a DBMS
 More desirable to use regular files for:
 Simple, well-defined database applications not
expected to change at all
 Stringent, real-time requirements that may not
be met because of DBMS overhead
 Embedded systems with limited storage
capacity
 No multiple-user access to data

Copyright © 2011 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe

 Summary
 Database
 Collection of related data (recorded facts)
 DBMS
 Generalized software package for
implementing and maintaining a computerized
database
 Several categories of database users
 Database applications have evolved
 Current trends: IR, Web, no-sql
Copyright © 2011 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe