Copyright © 2016 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B.

Navathe
 CHAPTER 1

Databases and Database Users

Copyright © 2016 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 1- 2

OUTLINE
◼ Types of Databases and Database Applications
◼ Basic Definitions
◼ Typical DBMS Functionality
◼ Example of a Database (UNIVERSITY)
◼ Main Characteristics of the Database Approach
◼ Types of Database Users
◼ Advantages of Using the Database Approach
◼ Historical Development of Database Technology
◼ Extending Database Capabilities
◼ When Not to Use Databases Slide 1- 3
Copyright © 2016 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe
Types of Databases and Database
Applications
◼ Traditional Applications:
◼ Numeric and Textual Databases
◼ More Recent Applications:
◼ Multimedia Databases
◼ Geographic Information Systems (GIS)
◼ Biological and Genome Databases
◼ Data Warehouses
◼ Mobile databases
◼ Real-time and Active Databases
◼ First part of book focuses on traditional applications
◼ A number of recent applications are described later in the
book (for example, Chapters 24,25,26,27,28,29)
Copyright © 2016 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 1- 4
Recent Developments (1)
◼ Social Networks started capturing a lot of
information about people and about
communications among people-posts, tweets,
photos, videos in systems such as:
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Linked-In
◼ All of the above constitutes data

◼ Search Engines- Google, Bing, Yahoo : collect

their own repository of web pages for searching
purposes Slide 1- 5
Copyright © 2016 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe
Recent Developments (2)
◼ New Technologies are emerging from the so-
called non-database software vendors to manage
vast amounts of data generated on the web:

◼ Big Data storage systems involving large clusters

of distributed computers (Chapter 25)
◼ NOSQL (Not Only SQL) systems (Chapter 24)
◼ A large amount of data now resides on the
“cloud” which means it is in huge data centers
using thousands of machines.
Copyright © 2016 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 1- 6
Basic Definitions
◼ Database:
◼ A collection of related data.

◼ Data:
◼ Known facts that can be recorded and have an implicit meaning.

◼ Mini-world:
◼ Some part of the real world about which data is stored in a
database. For example, student grades and transcripts at a
university.
◼ Database Management System (DBMS):
◼ A software package/ system to facilitate the creation and
maintenance of a computerized database.
◼ Database System:
◼ The DBMS software together with the data itself. Sometimes, the
applications are also included.

Copyright © 2016 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 1- 7

Impact of Databases and Database
Technology
◼ Businesses: Banking, Insurance, Retail,
Transportation, Healthcare, Manufacturing
◼ Service Industries: Financial, Real-estate, Legal,
Electronic Commerce, Small businesses
◼ Education : Resources for content and Delivery
◼ More recently: Social Networks, Environmental
and Scientific Applications, Medicine and
Genetics
◼ Personalized Applications: based on smart
mobile devices
Copyright © 2016 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 1- 8
Simplified database system environment

Copyright © 2016 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 1- 9

Typical DBMS Functionality
◼ Define a particular database in terms of its data types,
structures, and constraints
◼ Construct or Load the initial database contents on a
secondary storage medium
◼ Manipulating the database:
◼ Retrieval: Querying, generating reports
◼ Modification: Insertions, deletions and updates to its content
◼ Accessing the database through Web applications
◼ Processing and Sharing by a set of concurrent users and
application programs – yet, keeping all data valid and
consistent

Copyright © 2016 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 1- 10

Application Activities Against a
Database
◼ Applications interact with a database by
generating
- Queries: that access different parts of data and
formulate the result of a request
- Transactions: that may read some data and
“update” certain values or generate new data and
store that in the database
◼ Applications must not allow unauthorized users to
access data
◼ Applications must keep up with changing user

requirements against the database Slide 1- 11

Copyright © 2016 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe
Additional DBMS Functionality
◼ DBMS may additionally provide:
◼ Protection or Security measures to prevent
unauthorized access
◼ “Active” processing to take internal actions on data
◼ Presentation and Visualization of data
◼ Maintenance of the database and associated
programs over the lifetime of the database
application
◼ Called database, software, and system
maintenance

Copyright © 2016 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 1- 12

Example of a Database
(with a Conceptual Data Model)
◼ Mini-world for the example:
◼ Part of a UNIVERSITY environment.
◼ Some mini-world entities:
◼ STUDENTs
◼ COURSEs
◼ SECTIONs (of COURSEs)
◼ (academic) DEPARTMENTs
◼ INSTRUCTORs

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Example of a Database
(with a Conceptual Data Model)
◼ Some mini-world relationships:
◼ SECTIONs are of specific COURSEs
◼ STUDENTs take SECTIONs
◼ COURSEs have prerequisite COURSEs
◼ INSTRUCTORs teach SECTIONs
◼ COURSEs are offered by DEPARTMENTs
◼ STUDENTs major in DEPARTMENTs

◼ Note: The above entities and relationships are typically

expressed in a conceptual data model, such as the
ENTITY-RELATIONSHIP data model (see Chapters 3, 4)

Copyright © 2016 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 1- 14

Example of a simple database

Copyright © 2016 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 1- 15

Main Characteristics of the Database
Approach
◼ Self-describing nature of a database system:
◼ A DBMS catalog stores the description of a particular
database (e.g. data structures, types, and constraints)
◼ The description is called meta-data*.
◼ This allows the DBMS software to work with different
database applications.
◼ Insulation between programs and data:
◼ Called program-data independence.
◼ Allows changing data structures and storage organization

without having to change the DBMS access programs.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
* Some newer systems such as a few NOSQL systems need
no meta-data: they store the data definition within its structure
making it self describing Slide 1- 16
Copyright © 2016 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe
Example of a simplified database catalog

Copyright © 2016 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 1- 17

Main Characteristics of the Database
Approach (continued)
◼ Data Abstraction:
◼ A data model is used to hide storage details and
present the users with a conceptual view of the
database.
◼ Programs refer to the data model constructs rather
than data storage details
◼ Support of multiple views of the data:
◼ Each user may see a different view of the
database, which describes only the data of
interest to that user.

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Main Characteristics of the Database
Approach (continued)
◼ Sharing of data and multi-user transaction
processing:
◼ Allowing a set of concurrent users to retrieve from and to
update the database.
◼ Concurrency control within the DBMS guarantees that each
transaction is correctly executed or aborted
◼ Recovery subsystem ensures each completed transaction
has its effect permanently recorded in the database
◼ OLTP (Online Transaction Processing) is a major part of
database applications. This allows hundreds of concurrent
transactions to execute per second.

Copyright © 2016 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 1- 19

Database Users
◼ Users may be divided into
◼ Those who actually use and control the database
content, and those who design, develop and
maintain database applications (called “Actors on
the Scene”), and
◼ Those who design and develop the DBMS
software and related tools, and the computer
systems operators (called “Workers Behind the
Scene”).

Copyright © 2016 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 1- 20

Database Users – Actors on the
Scene
◼ Actors on the scene
◼ Database administrators:
◼ Responsible for authorizing access to the database,
for coordinating and monitoring its use, acquiring
software and hardware resources, controlling its use
and monitoring efficiency of operations.
◼ Database Designers:
◼ Responsible to define the content, the structure, the
constraints, and functions or transactions against
the database. They must communicate with the
end-users and understand their needs.

Copyright © 2016 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 1- 21

Database End Users
◼ Actors on the scene (continued)
◼ End-users: They use the data for queries, reports
and some of them update the database content.
End-users can be categorized into:

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Advantages of Using the Database
Approach
◼ Controlling redundancy in data storage and in
development and maintenance efforts.
◼ Sharing of data among multiple users.
◼ Restricting unauthorized access to data. Only the
DBA staff uses privileged commands and
facilities.
◼ Providing persistent storage for program Objects
◼ E.g., Object-oriented DBMSs make program
objects persistent– see Chapter 12.
◼ Providing Storage Structures (e.g. indexes) for
efficient Query Processing – see Chapter 17.
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Advantages of Using the Database
Approach (continued)
◼ Providing optimization of queries for efficient
processing.
◼ Providing backup and recovery services.
◼ Providing multiple interfaces to different classes
of users.
◼ Representing complex relationships among data.
◼ Enforcing integrity constraints on the database.
◼ Drawing inferences and actions from the stored
data using deductive and active rules and
triggers.
Copyright © 2016 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 1- 24
Additional Implications of Using the
Database Approach
◼ Potential for enforcing standards:
◼ This is very crucial for the success of database
applications in large organizations. Standards
refer to data item names, display formats, screens,
report structures, meta-data (description of data),
Web page layouts, etc.
◼ Reduced application development time:
◼ Incremental time to add each new application is
reduced.

Copyright © 2016 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 1- 25

Additional Implications of Using the
Database Approach (continued)
◼ Flexibility to change data structures:
◼ Database structure may evolve as new
requirements are defined.
◼ Availability of current information:
◼ Extremely important for on-line transaction
systems such as shopping, airline, hotel, car
reservations.

Copyright © 2016 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 1- 26

Historical Development of Database
Technology
◼ Early Database Applications:
◼ The Hierarchical and Network Models were introduced in
mid 1960s and dominated during the seventies.
◼ A bulk of the worldwide database processing still occurs
using these models, particularly, the hierarchical model
using IBM’s IMS system.
◼ Relational Model based Systems:
◼ Relational model was originally introduced in 1970, was
heavily researched and experimented within IBM Research
and several universities.
◼ Relational DBMS Products emerged in the early 1980s.

Copyright © 2016 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 1- 27

Historical Development of Database
Technology (continued)
◼ Object-oriented and emerging applications:
◼ Object-Oriented Database Management Systems
(OODBMSs) were introduced in late 1980s and early 1990s
to cater to the need of complex data processing in CAD and
other applications.
◼ Their use has not taken off much.
◼ Many relational DBMSs have incorporated object database
concepts, leading to a new category called object-relational
DBMSs (ORDBMSs)
◼ Extended relational systems add further capabilities (e.g. for
multimedia data, text, XML, and other data types)

Copyright © 2016 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 1- 28

When not to use a DBMS
◼ Main inhibitors (costs) of using a DBMS:
◼ High initial investment and possible need for additional
hardware.
◼ Overhead for providing generality, security, concurrency
control, recovery, and integrity functions.
◼ When a DBMS may be unnecessary:
◼ If the database and applications are simple, well defined,
and not expected to change.
◼ If access to data by multiple users is not required.
◼ When a DBMS may be infeasible:
◼ In embedded systems where a general purpose DBMS may
not fit in available storage

Copyright © 2016 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 1- 29

When not to use a DBMS
◼ When no DBMS may suffice:
◼ If there are stringent real-time requirements

that may not be met because of DBMS

overhead (e.g., telephone switching systems)
◼ If the database system is not able to handle the
complexity of data because of modeling limitations
(e.g., in complex genome and protein databases)
◼ If the database users need special operations not
supported by the DBMS (e.g., GIS and location
based services).

Copyright © 2016 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 1- 30

Chapter Summary
◼ Types of Databases and Database Applications
◼ Basic Definitions
◼ Typical DBMS Functionality
◼ Example of a Database (UNIVERSITY)
◼ Main Characteristics of the Database Approach
◼ Types of Database Users
◼ Advantages of Using the Database Approach
◼ Historical Development of Database Technology
◼ Extending Database Capabilities
◼ When Not to Use Databases Slide 1- 31
Copyright © 2016 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe