Chapter 15: Introduction To Database Management Systems

PRELUDE
9 Information is the refined data, data that have been put into a meaningful and useful
context and communicated to a recipient who uses it to make decisions.
9 It involves the communication and reception of intelligence or knowledge.
9 It appraises, notifies, stimulates, reduces uncertainty, reveals additional alternatives or
helps in eliminating irrelevant or poor ones and influence individuals and stimulates them
to action.
9 Information consists of data, images, text, documents and voice often intertwined but
always organized in a meaningful context.

Data Information Database DBMS

Raw Refined data put Collection of Software used to

Facts into useful and integrated manage a
and meaningful records and database
Figures context information

QUALITY OF INFORMATION
1. Accuracy
9 Information should be error free and should clearly reflect the meaning of data on which
it is based.
9 It should depict a clear picture to the recipient and may require a graphical presentation
rather than tabular structure.
9 Information should be free from biasness without manipulation and distortion.

2. Timeliness
9 Timeliness means delivering the information to the recipients with the needed time frame.

3. Relevancy
9 Relevancy means the use of any specific information for a specific person.
9 Information relevant for one person may not be relevant for another.

ELEMENTS OF A DATABASE

Data Items
Relationships
Constraint
Database
Schema

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TERMS USED IN DATABASE SYSTEM

1. Table
A table is a part of database with rows and columns where rows are records and columns are
fields.
2. File
A file is a collection of data on disk accessed by a unique name.
3. Record
A record is a group of related fields of information treated as a unit, an entity. Each row in a
table is a record.
4. Fields
The fields of a record contain the data items, attribute of the entity. The field has its length and
data type.
5. Primary Key
A primary key is a unique field that identifies the records in a table. It is the key that prevents
redundant data as no duplicate value possible.
6. Entity
An entity is a “thing” or “object” in the real world that is distinguishable from all other objects.
e.g. each person in an enterprise is an entity.
7. Attribute (Fields)
The individual properties of the entity, about which data is recorded are its attribute. e.g. the
attributes of Report (Entity) will include “Roll No.”, “SName”, “Class”, “Subject1”, “Subject2”,
“Total”
8. Relationship
A relationship is an association among several entities.

DRAWBACKS OF OLDER DATABASE SYSTEMS

ƒ Encoded Data (data hard-coded in the application)
ƒ Interdependence between programs and data files
ƒ Data repetition or redundancy
ƒ Data inconsistency (Irregularity)
ƒ Ad hoc (Unplanned/Informal) representation of relationships
ƒ Ad hoc data management techniques
ƒ Lack of data security mechanisms
ƒ Non uniform back-up and recovery methods

DATABASE AND ITS IMPORTANCE

A database is a structured collection of records or data that is stored in a computer system. In order
for a database to be truly functional, it must not only store large amounts of records well, but be
accessed easily. In addition, new information and changes should also be fairly easy to input. In
order to have a highly efficient database system, you need to incorporate a program that manages
the queries and information stored on the system called the Database Management System. Besides
these features, all databases that are created should be built with high data integrity and the ability
to recover data if hardware fails.

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ADVANTAGES OF DATABASE

Data redundancy can be reduced

Data redundancy refers to the repetition of data in multiple places. This wastes the storage spaces.
By using a computerized database system, redundancy can be reduced to remarkable amount.
Redundancy can be removed using a primary key.

Inconsistency can be avoided

Data becomes inconsistent when there is a redundancy error. When there is same data on two sites
and changes are made at one site only without propagating to the next site, data remain inconsistent
as the entries regarding the same data do not agree.

Data Sharing
Data in a database can be shared with any existing application.

Standards can be enforced

With the central control of the database, the database administrator can enforce standards.

Security restrictions can be applied

The DBA can ensure the security of data by the use of a proper channel to access data. Authorization
checks can be carried out while accessing sensitive data.

Integrity (Accuracy) can be maintained

Integrity of a database refers to it accuracy and precision. A centralized control of the data helps in
permitting the administrator to define integrity constraints to the data in database.

Conflicting requirements can be balanced

Knowing the overall requirement as opposed to the individual requirements, the database can be
structured to provide an overall service that is best for the organization.

CHARACTERISTICS OF DATA IN A DATABASE

The data in a database should have the following features.

9 Shared: Shared among different users and applications
9 Persistence: Data in a database exist permanently and has thoroughness.
9 Validity/Integrity/Correctness: Data should be correct with respect to the real world entity that
they represent.
9 Security: Data should be protected from unauthorized users and access.
9 Consistency: Whenever more than one data element in a database represents related real-
world values, the values should be consistent (regular) with respect to the relationship.
9 Non-redundant: No two data items in a database should represent the same real-world
entity.

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DATABASE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

9 A DBMS is a software that provides services for accessing a database, while maintaining all
the required features of the data.
9 A DBMS is a set of software programs that controls the organization, storage, management,
and retrieval of data in a database.
9 It is a set of prewritten programs that are used to store, update and retrieve a Database.
9 The DBMS accepts requests for data from the application program and instructs the operating
system to transfer the appropriate data.
9 When a DBMS is used, information systems can be changed much more easily as the
organization's information requirements change. New categories of data can be added to the
database without disruption to the existing system.

SERVICES OF DBMS
Applications
Catalog Programming Interface
Management
Security Management

Recovery Management

Transaction Management
Catalog Concurrency Control
Management
Storage Manager

Fig: Services provided by a DBMS

Transaction Processing: A transaction is a sequence of database operations that represents a logical

unit of work. It assesses a database and transforms it from one state to another. A transaction can
update a record, delete one or modify a set of records. When a DBMS does a "commit", the changes
made by the transaction are made permanent. If a user does not want to make the change
permanent, he can rollback the transaction and the database will remain in its original state.

Concurrency Management: It is the database management activity of coordinating the actions of

database manipulation processes that operates concurrently, access shared data and can potentially
interfere with each other. The goal of an ideal concurrency management mechanism is to allow
concurrency while maintaining the consistency of the shared data.

Recovery: The objective of recovery in a database is to ensure that the aborted of failed transactions
do not create any adverse effect on the database or other transactions. It makes sure that the
database is returned to a consistent state after a transaction fails or aborts. Recovery is a very much
related to concurrency in the sense that, the more the concurrency, the more is the chance of an
aborted transaction affecting many other transactions.
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Security: Security refers to the protection of data against unauthorized access. Security mechanisms
make sure that only authorized users are given access to the data in the database. The level of
access is for each user and the operations that each user can perform on the data will be monitored
and controlled by the DBMS depending on the access privileges of the users.

Language Interface: The DBMS provides support languages used for the definition and manipulation
of the data in the database. By providing language support for data definition and manipulation the
DBMS create an environment where the users can do their jobs without worrying about the physical
implementation.
Data Catalog: Data catalog or Data Dictionary is a system database that contains the descriptions of
data in the database (metadata). It contains information about data, relationship, constraints and the
entire schema that organize these features into unified database. It also gives the information about
the structure of the database.

Storage Management: The DBMS provides a mechanism for the management of permanent storage
of the data.

DATABASE MODELS

Hierarchical Model
The hierarchical data model
organizes data in a tree structure.
There is a hierarchy of parent and
child data segments. This structure
implies that a record can have
repeating information, generally in
the child data segments. Data is a
series of records, which have a set of
field values attached to it. It collects
all the instances of a specific record
together as a record type. These
record types are the equivalent of
tables in the relational model, and
with the individual records being the
equivalent of rows. To create links
between these record types, the
hierarchical model uses Parent Child
Relationships. These are a 1:N mapping between record types. This is done by using trees, like set
theory used in the relational model, "borrowed" from maths.

For example, an organization might store information about an employee, such as name, employee
number, department, salary. The organization might also store information about an employee's
children, such as name and date of birth. The employee and children data forms a hierarchy, where
the employee data represents the parent segment and the children data represents the child
segment. If an employee has three children, then there would be three child segments associated

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with one employee segment. In a hierarchical database the parent-child relationship is one to many.
This restricts a child segment to having only one parent segment.

Network Model
The popularity of the network data
model coincided with the popularity
of the hierarchical data model. Some
data were more naturally modeled
with more than one parent per child.
So, the network model permitted the
modeling of many-to-many
relationships in data. In 1971, the
Conference on Data Systems
Languages (CODASYL) formally
defined the network model. The basic
data modeling construct in the
network model is the set construct. A
set consists of an owner record type,
a set name, and a member record
type. A member record type can have that role in more than one set, hence the multiparent concept
is supported. An owner record type can also be a member or owner in another set. The data model
is a simple network, and link and intersection record types (called junction records by IDMS) may
exist, as well as sets between them. Thus, the complete network of relationships is represented by
several pairwise sets; in each set some (one) record type is owner (at the tail of the network arrow)
and one or more record types are members (at the head of the relationship arrow). Usually, a set
defines a 1:M relationship, although 1:1 is permitted. The CODASYL network model is based on
mathematical set theory.

Relational Model
Developed by E.F. Codd, a relational
database allows the definition of data
structures, storage and retrieval operations
and integrity constraints. In such a
database the data and relations between
them are organized in tables. A table is a
collection of records and each record in a
table contains the same fields.

Properties of Relational Tables:

• Values Are Atomic
• Each Row is Unique
• Column Values Are of the Same Kind
• The Sequence of Columns is
Insignificant
• The Sequence of Rows is Insignificant
• Each Column Has a Unique Name
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Certain fields may be designated as keys, which mean that searches for specific values of that field
will use indexing to speed them up. Where fields in two different tables take values from the same
set, a join operation can be performed to select related records in the two tables by matching values
in those fields. Often, but not always, the fields will have the same name in both tables. For example,
an "orders" table might contain (customer-ID, product-code) pairs and a "products" table might
contain (product-code, price) pairs so to calculate a given customer's bill you would sum the prices
of all products ordered by that customer by joining on the product-code fields of the two tables. This
can be extended to joining multiple tables on multiple fields. Because these relationships are only
specified at retrieval time, relational databases are classed as dynamic database management
system. The RELATIONAL database model is based on the Relational Algebra.

Object-Oriented Model
Object oriented DBMS add database
functionality to object programming
languages. They bring much more than
persistent storage of programming
language objects. Object oriented DBMS
extends the semantics of the C++,
Smalltalk and Java object programming
languages to provide full-featured
database programming capability, while
retaining native language compatibility.
A major benefit of this approach is the
unification of the application and
database development into a seamless
data model and language environment.
As a result, applications require less
code, use more natural data modeling,
and code bases are easier to maintain.
Object developers can write complete
database applications with a modest
amount of additional effort.

In contrast to a relational DBMS where a complex data structure must be flattened out to fit into
tables or joined together from those tables to form the in-memory structure, object DBMSs have no
performance overhead to store or retrieve a web or hierarchy of interrelated objects. This one-to-one
mapping of object programming language objects to database objects has two benefits over other
storage approaches: it provides higher performance management of objects, and it enables better
management of the complex interrelationships between objects. This makes object DBMSs better
suited to support applications such as financial portfolio risk analysis systems, telecommunications
service applications, World Wide Web document structures, design and manufacturing systems, and
hospital patient record systems, which have complex relationships between data.

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Deductive/Inference Model
A deductive model stores as little
data as possible but compensates
by maintaining rules that allow new
data combinations to be created
when needed. A deductive
database system is a database
system which can make deductions
based on rules and facts stored in
the database. Datalog is the
language typically used to specify
facts, rules and queries in deductive
databases. Deductive databases
have grown out of the desire to
combine logic programming with
relational databases to construct systems that support a powerful formalism and are still fast and
able to deal with very large datasets. Deductive databases are more expressive than relational
databases but less expressive than logic programming systems. Deductive databases have not found
widespread adoptions outside academia, but some of their concepts are used in today's relational
databases to support the advanced features of more recent SQL standards.

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