CIS450/550:

Description and Syllabus

Course description:
Structured information is the lifeblood of commerce, government, and science
today. This course provides an introduction to the broad field, covering a range of
topics relating to structured data, ranging from data modeling to logical foundations
and popular languages, to system implementations. We will study the theory of
relational data design; the basics of query languages; efficient storage of data,
execution of queries and query optimization; transactions and updates; and "big
data" and NoSQL systems. The course entails roughly 6 homeworks, a group project
and 2 midterms.

Topic covered:
Database design, relational algebra, query languages (SQL, XQuery), data import and
munging, views, indexing, transactions, query optimization, client-side & server-side
Web development, Map/Reduce and NoSQL systems.

Prerequisites:
For Penn undergrads and submatriculants: CIS 121.
For MCIT students: CIT 592 and 594.
For other Master's students: programming experience and mathematical maturity
equivalent to the above.

Text: Ramakrishnan and Gehrke, Database Management Systems, McGraw-Hill

Detailed syllabus:
1. Introduction. Relational model, schemas and SQL. (Ch. 1, 3.1-3.3, 5.1-5.3)
2. Advanced SQL. Nulls, outer joins (Ch. 5.3-5.6)
3. Updates and views. Embedded SQL and the Web (Ch. 3.6, 7.5-7.7)
4. Relational database design: ER modeling (Ch. 2.1-2.5, 3.1-3.6)
5. Relational design theory: Functional dependencies, Armstrong’s Axioms.
Schema refinement and normalization. Decomposition into BCNF and 3NF.
(Ch. 19:1-6)
6. Updates and transactions, transactions in practice. Isolation levels.
(Ch. 16:1-6)
7. Storage and Indexing (Ch. 8:1-4)
8. B+trees (Ch. 10:3-8)
9. Relational database optimization foundations: relational algebra (Ch. 4:1-2)
10. Query processing and optimization (Ch. 12:1-4, 14:1-4, 15:1, 3)
11. NoSQL solutions and document-oriented databases: MongoDB and
MapReduce (handout)
12. NoSQL solutions and graph databases: Neo4j (handout)
13. Security and authorization (Ch. 21)