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College: Department: Course Course Title:
Engineering and Information Information Code: Fundamentals of Database
Technology Technology IM 101 Systems
Faculty: Chairperson:
Rommel P. Apostol, MIT PATRICK LUIS M. FRANCISCO, MIT

Understanding the Flow of Data in Everyday Transactions,

A module in IM 101: Fundamentals of Database Systems
 Foreword
This module aims to help students understand, familiarize, and adopt the use of fundamental data
processes and operation to utilize them in developing more efficient and secure information systems.
This module contains lessons that introduce them to the core concept of database systems and
management and answers the essential questions presented in each part of the module. The learning
outcomes from each part of the module will help the students understand the essential questions given
and at a certain point in the discussions, an evaluation will be done through the use of different
activities.
At the end of this module, the student will be able to understand the basic concepts and use of
database systems and be able to use tools and software in manipulating them.
 Table of Contents
Unit Five
Essential Questions …………………………………………………………………………….. 1
Intended Learning Outcomes …………………………………………………………………... 1
Assesment Task
Diagnostic ………………………………………………………………………………. 1
Formative ……………………………………………………………………………….. 6
Summative ……………………………………………………………………………… 6
Lessons Input …………………………………………………………………………………… 1
References ………………………………………………………………………………………. 7
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Unit Five – Understanding Data model and Schema

This unit explains how a data model differs from a database schema and what elements make up the said
topics.

 Essential Question
Why is the data model needed?
What elements comprise a database schema?
How can we differentiate the different database schema?

 Intended Learning Outcomes

Database model and how they are characterized
Describes how a database schema is created

 Diagnostic Assessment Task

At the start of the lesson the instructor will provide the following activities to gauge the students
understanding of the lesson beforehand :
1. The instructor will ask the students to write a list of 10 words which they think is related to
schema
2. The instructor will ask the students to write a 100 word essay about why we need to separate the
physical, logical and external schema

 Lessons Input
A data model or a schema is a collection of high-level data description constructs that hide many
low-level storage details. A DBMS allows a user to define the data to be stored in terms of a data
model. Most database management systems today are based on the relational data model.
A semantic data model is a more abstract, high-level data model that makes it easier for a user to
come up with a good initial description of the data in an enterprise. These models contain a wide
variety of constructs that help describe a real application scenario. It focuses on providing more
meaning of the data itself, rather than solely or primarily on the relationships and attributes of the
data.
Semantic data model provides a high-level understanding of the data by abstracting it further away
from the physical aspects of data storage.
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Example of sematic model :

Here are some of the key phrases you will see in a semantic model (key terms are capitalized)

 Journey IS AN Artist
 An Artist RECORDS an Album
 An Album CONTAINS songs
 A song MAY CONTAIN lyrics
 Raised on Radio is an INSTANCE OF an Album (or a TYPE OF)

Figure 18. Semantic Data Model sample

The Relational Model

A description of data in terms of a data model is called a schema. In the relational model, the schema
for a relation specifies its name, the name of each field (or attribute or column), and the type of each
field.
Levels of Abstraction in a DBMS
The database description consists of a schema at each of these three levels of abstraction: the
physical/internal, conceptual, and external.
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Figure 19. Three Tier Architecture

1. Physical/Internal Schema

Are the actual PHYSICAL storage structure and access paths. It defines the physical storage structure of
the database. It is a very low-level representation of the entire database. It contains multiple occurrences
of multiple types of internal records. In the ANSI term, it is also called "stored record'.

Facts about Internal schema:

 The internal schema is the lowest level of data abstraction

 It helps you to keeps information about the actual representation of the entire database. Like the
actual storage of the data on the disk in the form of records
 The internal view tells us what data is stored in the database and how
 It never deals with physical devices. Instead, internal schema views a physical device as a
collection of physical pages

The physical/internal schema specifies additional storage details. Essentially, the physical schema
summarizes how the relations described in the conceptual schema are stored on secondary storage
devices such as disks and tapes. We must decide what file organizations to use to store the relations
and create auxiliary data structures, called indexes, to speed up data retrieval operations.
A sample physical schema for the university database follows:
 Store all relations as unsorted files of records. (A file in a DBMS is either a collection of
records or a collection of pages, rather than a string of characters as in an operating system.)
 Create indexes on the first column of the Students, Faculty, and Courses relations, the salary
column of Faculty, and the capacity column of Rooms.
Decisions about the physical schema are based on an understanding of how the data is typically
accessed. The process of arriving at a good physical schema is called physical database design.

2. Conceptual/Logical Schema
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The conceptual schema describes the Database structure of the whole database for the community of
users. This schema hides information about the physical storage structures and focuses on describing
data types, entities, relationships, etc.

This logical level comes between the user level and the physical storage view. However, there is an only
a single conceptual view of a single database.

Facts about Conceptual schema:

 Defines all database entities, their attributes, and their relationships

 Security and integrity information
 In the conceptual level, the data available to a user must be contained in or derivable from the
physical level

The conceptual schema (sometimes called the logical schema) describes the stored data in terms of the
data model of the DBMS. In a relational DBMS, the conceptual schema describes all relations that are
stored in the database. For example, these relations contain information about entities, such as students
and faculty, and about relationships, such as students' enrollment in courses.

3. External/View Schema

An external schema describes the part of the database that a specific user is interested in. It hides the
unrelated details of the database from the user. There may be "n" number of external views for each
database.

Each external view is defined using an external schema, which consists of definitions of various types of
external record of that specific view.

An external view is just the content of the database as it is seen by some specific particular users. For
example, a user from the sales department will see only sales-related data.

Facts about external schema:

 An external level is only related to the data which is viewed by specific end users.
 This level includes some external schemas.
 The external schema level is nearest to the user
 The external schema describes the segment of the database which is needed for a certain user
group and hides the remaining details from the database from the specific user group

External schemas, which usually are also in terms of the data model of the DBMS, allow data access to
be customized (and authorized) at the level of individual users or groups of users. Any given database
has exactly one conceptual schema and one physical schema because it has just one set of stored
relations, but it may have several external schemas, each tailored to a particular group of users. Each
external schema consists of a collection of one or more views and relations from the conceptual schema.
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A view is conceptually a relation, but the records in a view are not stored in the DBMS. Rather, they are
computed using a definition for the view, in terms of relations stored in the DBMS.
A DBMS enables users to create, modify, and query data through a data manipulation language (DML).
Thus, the query language is only one part of the DML, which also provides constructs to insert, delete,
and modify data.

The goal of 3 levels/schema of Database

Here, are some Objectives of using Three schema Architecture:
 Every user should be able to access the same data but able to see a customized view of the data.
 The user need not to deal directly with physical database storage detail.
 The DBA should be able to change the database storage structure without disturbing the user's
views
 The internal structure of the database should remain unaffected when changes are made to the
physical aspects of storage.

Advantages Database Schema

 You can manage data independent of the physical storage
 Faster Migration to new graphical environments
 DBMS Architecture allows you to make changes on the presentation level without affecting the
other two layers
 As each tier is separate, it is possible to use different sets of developers
 It is more secure as the client doesn't have direct access to the database business logic
 In case of the failure of the one-tier no data loss as you are always secure by accessing the other
tier
Disadvantages of Database Schema
 Complete DB Schema is a complex structure which is difficult to understand for every one
 Difficult to set up and maintain
 The physical separation of the tiers can affect the performance of the Database

Summary
 There are mainly three levels of data abstraction: Physical or Internal Level, Conceptual or
Logical Level, or External or View level
 The internal schema defines the physical storage structure of the database
 The conceptual schema describes the Database structure of the whole database for the
community of users
 An external schema describes the part of the database which a specific user is interested in
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 DBMS Architecture allows you to make changes on the presentation level without affecting the
other two layers

 Formative Assessment Task

1. The instructor during the last five minutes of class, will give students one minute (or two to
five minutes) to write the answers to one or two questions, such as, What was the most
important thing you learned? and What question or questions remain unanswered?.

*** End of Lesson Input ***

 Summative Assessment Task

1. Create a 300 words essay (excluding articles) about the importance of separating the
physical, conceptual and external view of a database.
2. Create your own diagram describing the interaction between the physical, conceptual and
external view of a database. You can use different symbols or objects.
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References

Garcia-Molina, H.,Ullman, J.,Widom, J. (2008). Database Systems: The Complete Book (2nd ed., pp 15-
55). Pearson