Levels of abstraction & data independence

1 What is Data Abstraction in DBMS?

Data Abstraction is a process of hiding unwanted or irrelevant details from the end user. It
provides a different view and helps in achieving data independence which is used to enhance the
security of data. Data Abstraction is one of the most important concepts in DBMS. Data
abstraction is the process of hiding unwanted and irrelevant details from the end user. It helps
to store information in such a way that the end user can access data which is necessary, the user
will not be able to see what data is stored or how it is stored in a database. Data abstraction helps
to keep data secure from unauthorized access and it hides all the implementation details.
Example:-
When you go to purchase clothes from the shop, you go there and see the clothes, you
look for the color, size, material, and company that made those clothes. You are not concerned
about where these clothes are made or from where this material comes. So this is what
abstraction of data is in DBMS. You need only specified things, so abstraction helps to hide
irrelevant details and it provides the user with the necessary data only. So in this article, we are going
to see data abstraction in detail.
The Data Abstraction in DBMS is also called as “Three-Schema Architecture”, which can
be used to separate the user applications and the physical database.
1.1 There are mainly 3 levels of data abstraction:
1. Physical or Internal Level
2. Logical or Conceptual Level
3. View or External Level

1.1.1 Physical or Internal Level

This is the lowest level of data abstraction. It is also known as Internal Level. It tells us how
the data is actually stored in memory. Physical level describes the physical storage structure of

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data in database, as well it also describe how the data is stored and retrieve in database and also
describe compression and encryption techniques applied on data. This level is very close to physical
storage of data. At lowest level, it is stored in the form of bits with the physical addresses on the
secondary storage device. At highest level, it can be viewed in the form of files. The internal schema
defines the various stored data types. It uses a physical data model. Access methods like sequential or
random access and file organization methods. Suppose we need to store the details of an employee.
Blocks of storage and the amount of memory used for these purposes are kept hidden from the user.

1.1.2 Logical or Conceptual Level

Conceptual level also called logical or global level describes the structure of the whole database
for a group of users. It describe how the data will be appered to various user and relationship between
various data. Conceptual schema is a representation of the entire content of the database. This schema
contains all the information to build relevant external records. It hides the internal details of physical
storage. At this level, the information available to the user at the view level (upper Level) is
unknown.
The logical level thus describes the entire database in terms of a small number of relatively
simple structures. Although implementation of the simple structures at the logical level may involve
complex physical-level structures, the user of the logical level does not need to be aware of this
complexity. This is referred to as physical data independence.

1.1.3 View or External Level

This is the highest level of abstraction. External level is also called view level is related to
the data which is viewed by individual end users. This level includes a number of user views or
external schemas. This level is closest to the user and only some part of the actual database is
viewed by the users. External view describes the segment of the database that is required for a
particular user group and hides the rest of the database from that user group. The different user
may have different views.
This level is used to easily access the database by an individual user. Users view data in
the form of rows and columns. Tables and relations are used to store data. Multiple views of the
same database may exist. Users can just view the data and interact with the database, storage
and implementation details are hidden from them. Even though the logical level uses simpler
structures, complexity remains because of the variety of information stored in a large database.
Many users of the database system do not need all this information; instead, they need to access
only a part of the database. The view level of abstraction exists to simplify their interaction with
the system.
2 Data Independence
Data Independence is mainly defined as a property of DBMS that helps you to change the
database schema at one level of a system without requiring to change the schema at the next level. it
helps to keep the data separated from all program that makes use of it.

2.1 Two levels of data independence arising from these levels of

abstraction:
1. Physical level data independence
2. Logical level data independence

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2.1.1 Physical Level Data Independence
It refers to the characteristic of being able to modify the physical schema without any
alterations to the conceptual or logical schema, done for optimization purposes, e.g., the Conceptual
structure of the database would not be affected by any change in storage size of the database system
server. Changing from sequential to random access files is one such example. These alterations or
modifications to the physical structure may include:
 Utilizing new storage devices.
 Modifying data structures used for storage.
 Altering indexes or using alternative file organization techniques etc.

2.1.2 Logical Level Data Independence

It refers characteristic of being able to modify the logical schema without affecting the
external schema or application program. The user view of the data would not be affected by any
changes to the conceptual view of the data. These changes may include insertion or deletion of
attributes, altering table structures entities or relationships to the logical schema, etc.
3 References
1) Elmasri, R., & Navathe, S.B. (2015). Fundamentals of Database Systems. 7th edition. Pearson
Education.
2) https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/data-abstraction-and-data-independence/
3) https://www.javatpoint.com/data-abstraction-in-dbms
4) Date, C. J. (2004). An Introduction to database systems. 8th edition. Pearson Education.
5) Silberschatz, A., Korth, H. F., & Sudarshan, S. (2010). Database System Concepts. 6th edition.
McGrawHill.

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