Difference Between Data and Information

Many believe that the terms “data” and “information” can be used interchangeably and mean the
same. However, there is a subtle difference between the two.
Data can be a number, symbol, character, word, and if not put into context, individual pieces of data
mean nothing to humans.
On the other hand, information is a data put into context. Information is utilized by humans in some
significant way. A good example of information would be a computer. A computer uses
programming scripts, formulas, or software applications to turn data into information.
DATA PROCESSING

Data processing refers to the process of performing specific operations on a set of data or a database.
A database is an organized collection of facts and information, such as records on employees,
inventory, customers, and potential customers. As these examples suggest, numerous forms of data
processing exist and serve diverse applications in the business setting.
Data processing starts with collecting data. The data collected to convert the desired form must be
processed by processing data in a step-by-step manner such as the data collected must be stored,
sorted, processed, analyzed, and presented.
So this broadly divided into 6 basic steps as following discussion given below.
Data Collection
Storage of Data
Sorting of Data
Processing of Data
Data Analysis
Data Presentation and conclusions

DATA MANAGEMENT
Data management is the process of ingesting, storing, organizing and maintaining the data created
and collected by an organization. Effective data management is a crucial piece of deploying the IT
systems that run business applications and provide analytical information to help drive operational
decision-making and strategic planning by corporate executives, business managers and other end
users.

The data management process includes a combination of different functions that collectively aim to
make sure that the data in corporate systems is accurate, available and accessible. Most of the
required work is done by IT and data management teams

File Oriented and Database Approach in DBMS

Traditional file-based approach

The term 'file-based approach' refers to the situation where data is stored in one or more separate
computer files defined and managed by different application programs. Typically, for example, the
details of customers may be stored in one file, orders in another, etc. Computer programs access the
stored files to perform the various tasks required by the business. Each program, or sometimes a
related set of programs, is called a computer application. For example, all of the programs
associated with processing customers' orders are referred to as the order processing application. The
file-based approach might have application programs that deal with purchase orders, invoices, sales
and marketing, suppliers, customers, employees, and so on.
Limitations
• Data duplication: Each program stores its own separate files. If the same data is to be
accessed by different programs, then each program must store its own copy of the same data.
• Data inconsistency: If the data is kept in different files, there could be problems when an
item of data needs updating, as it will need to be updated in all the relevant files; if this is not
done, the data will be inconsistent, and this could lead to errors.
• Difficult to implement data security: Data is stored in different files by different application
programs. This makes it difficult and expensive to implement organization-wide security
procedures on the data.
The following diagram shows how different applications will each have their own copy of the files
they need in order to carry out the activities for which they are responsible:
The shared file approach
One approach to solving the problem of each application having its own set of files is to share files
between different applications. This will alleviate the problem of duplication and inconsistent data
between different applications, and is illustrated in the diagram below:

The introduction of shared files solves the problem of duplication and inconsistent data across
different versions of the same file held by different departments, but other problems may emerge,
including:
• File incompatibility: When each department had its own version of a file for processing, each
department could ensure that the structure of the file suited their specific application. If
departments have to share files, the file structure that suits one department might not suit
another. For example, data might need to be sorted in a different sequence for different
applications (for instance, customer details could be stored in alphabetical order, or numerical
order, or ascending or descending order of customer number).
 • Difficult to control access: Some applications may require access to more data than others;
for instance, a credit control application will need access to customer credit limit information,
whereas a delivery note printing application will only need access to customer name and
address details. The file will still need to contain the additional information to support the
application that requires it.
• Physical data dependence: If the structure of the data file needs to be changed in some way
(for example, to reflect a change in currency), this alteration will need to be reflected in all
application programs that use that data file.
• Difficult to implement concurrency: While a data file is being processed by one application,
the file will not be available for other applications or for ad hoc queries. This is because, if
more than one application is allowed to alter data in a file at one time, serious problems can
arise in ensuring that the updates made by each application do not clash with one another.
This issue of ensuring consistent, concurrent updating of information is an extremely
important one, and is dealt with in detail for database systems in the chapter on concurrency
control. File-based systems avoid these problems by not allowing more than one application
to access a file at one time.

Disadvantages of File processing system

1) Data redundancy

In computer system many files are likely in the different formats and the programs are written in
different programming languages. Moreover, the same information may be duplicated in several files,
this duplication of data is known as data redundancy.

Example: The address and telephone number of a particular customer may appear in a file that
consist of saving account records and in a file that consist of checking account record.

2) Data inconsistency

Various copies contain the same type of data which may no longer which means that various copies
of same data may contain different kind of information.

Example: A changed customer address may be reflected in savings account records but not elsewhere
in the system.

3) Difficulty in accessing data

In file processing system it is very difficult to access the data in a specific way and it also require a
special application program which carry out new task.

4) Data isolation
Because data are scattered in various files and files may be in different formats, writing new
applications program to retrieve the appropriate data is difficult.

5) Integrity problem

Database must satisfy a particular consistency constraint. These constraints are added in application
program.

Example: The balance of a bank account may never fall below a prescribed amount.

6) Atomicity problem

A computer system, like any other mechanical or electrical devices, is subject to failure. In many
applications, it is crucial that if failure occurs, the data be restored to the consistent state that existed
prior to the failure.

7) Concurrent access anomalies

If two programs run concurrently it is important to has supervision. But supervision is difficult to
provide because data is decentralised in file processing system. In such an environment, interaction
updates may result in inconsistent data.

8) Security problems

In this not every user of the database system should be able to access all the data.

Need or Benefits of DBMS

DBMS was designed to solve the fundamental problems associated with storing, managing,
accessing, securing, and auditing data in traditional file systems.

Traditional database applications were developed on top of the databases, which led to challenges
such as data redundancy, isolation, integrity constraints, and difficulty managing data access. A layer
of abstraction was required between users or apps and the databases at a physical and logical level.

Introducing DBMS software to manage databases results in the following benefits:

• Data security. DBMS allows organizations to enforce policies that enable compliance and
security. The databases are available for appropriate users according to organizational policies.
The DBMS system is also responsible to maintain optimum performance of querying operations
while ensuring the validity, security and consistency of data items updated to a database.
• Data sharing. Fast and efficient collaboration between users.
• Data access and auditing. Controlled access to databases. Logging associated access activities
allows organizations to audit for security and compliance.
• Data integration. Instead of operating island of database resources, a single interface is used to
manage databases with logical and physical relationships.
• Abstraction and independence. Organizations can change the physical schema of database
systems without necessitating changes to the logical schema that govern database relationships. As
a result, organizations can upgrade storage and scale the infrastructure without impacting database
operations. Similarly, changes to the logical schema can be applied without altering the apps and
services that access the databases.
• Uniform management and administration. A single console interface to perform basic
administrative tasks makes the job easier for database admins and IT users.

Characteristics of Database Management System

Self-describing nature of a database system

A database system is referred to as self-describing because it not only contains the database itself, but
also metadata which defines and describes the data and relationships between tables in the database.
This information is used by the DBMS software or database users if needed. This separation of data
and information about the data makes a database system totally different from the traditional file-
based system in which the data definition is part of the application programs.

Insulation between program and data

In the file-based system, the structure of the data files is defined in the application programs so if a
user wants to change the structure of a file, all the programs that access that file might need to be
changed as well.

On the other hand, in the database approach, the data structure is stored in the system catalogue and
not in the programs. Therefore, one change is all that is needed to change the structure of a file. This
insulation between the programs and data is also called program-data independence.

Support for multiple views of data

A database supports multiple views of data. A view is a subset of the database, which is defined and
dedicated for particular users of the system. Multiple users in the system might have different views
of the system. Each view might contain only the data of interest to a user or group of users.

Sharing of data and multiuser system

Current database systems are designed for multiple users. That is, they allow many users to access the
same database at the same time. This access is achieved through features called concurrency control
strategies. These strategies ensure that the data accessed are always correct and that data integrity is
maintained.
The design of modern multiuser database systems is a great improvement from those in the past
which restricted usage to one person at a time.

Control of data redundancy

In the database approach, ideally, each data item is stored in only one place in the database. In some
cases, data redundancy still exists to improve system performance, but such redundancy is controlled
by application programming and kept to minimum by introducing as little redudancy as possible
when designing the database.

Data sharing

The integration of all the data, for an organization, within a database system has many advantages.
First, it allows for data sharing among employees and others who have access to the system. Second,
it gives users the ability to generate more information from a given amount of data than would be
possible without the integration.

Enforcement of integrity constraints

Database management systems must provide the ability to define and enforce certain constraints to
ensure that users enter valid information and maintain data integrity. A database constraint is a
restriction or rule that dictates what can be entered or edited in a table such as a postal code using a
certain format or adding a valid city in the City field.

There are many types of database constraints. Data type, for example, determines the sort of data
permitted in a field, for example numbers only. Data uniqueness such as the primary key ensures that
no duplicates are entered. Constraints can be simple (field based) or complex (programming).

Restriction of unauthorized access

Not all users of a database system will have the same accessing privileges. For example, one user
might have read-only access (i.e., the ability to read a file but not make changes), while another
might have read and write privileges, which is the ability to both read and modify a file. For this
reason, a database management system should provide a security subsystem to create and control
different types of user accounts and restrict unauthorized access.

Data independence

Another advantage of a database management system is how it allows for data independence. In other
words, the system data descriptions or data describing data (metadata) are separated from the
application programs. This is possible because changes to the data structure are handled by the
database management system and are not embedded in the program itself.
Transaction processing

A database management system must include concurrency control subsystems. This feature ensures
that data remains consistent and valid during transaction processing even if several users update the
same information.

Provision for multiple views of data

By its very nature, a DBMS permits many users to have access to its database either individually or
simultaneously. It is not important for users to be aware of how and where the data they access is
stored

Backup and recovery facilities

Backup and recovery are methods that allow you to protect your data from loss. The database system
provides a separate process, from that of a network backup, for backing up and recovering data. If a
hard drive fails and the database stored on the hard drive is not accessible, the only way to recover the
database is from a backup.
If a computer system fails in the middle of a complex update process, the recovery subsystem is
responsible for making sure that the database is restored to its original state. These are two more
benefits of a database management system.

Database Architecture

There are three types of DBMS architecture:

1. Single tier architecture

2. Two tier architecture
3. Three tier architecture

1. Single tier architecture

In this type of architecture, the database is readily available on the client machine, any request made
by client doesn’t require a network connection to perform the action on the database.

For example, lets say you want to fetch the records of employee from the database and the database is
available on your computer system, so the request to fetch employee details will be done by your
computer and the records will be fetched from the database by your computer as well. This type of
system is generally referred as local database system.
2. Two tier architecture

In two-tier architecture, the Database system is present at the server machine and the DBMS
application is present at the client machine, these two machines are connected with each other
through a reliable network as shown in the above diagram.

Whenever client machine makes a request to access the database present at server using a query
language like sql, the server perform the request on the database and returns the result back to the
client. The application connection interface such as JDBC, ODBC are used for the interaction
between server and client.

3. Three tier architecture

In three-tier architecture, another layer is present between the client machine and server machine. In
this architecture, the client application doesn’t communicate directly with the database systems
present at the server machine, rather the client application communicates with server application and
the server application internally communicates with the database system present at the server.

DBMS Three Level Architecture Diagram(LEVELS OF ABSTRACTION)

The external schema

The external schemas describe the database as it is seen by the user, and the user applications. The
external schema maps onto the conceptual schema, which is described below.
There may be many external schemas, each reflecting a simplified model of the world, as seen by
particular applications. External schemas may be modified, or new ones created, without the need to
make alterations to the physical storage of data. The interface between the external schema and the
conceptual schema can be amended to accommodate any such changes.
The external schema allows the application programs to see as much of the data as they require, while
excluding other items that are not relevant to that application. In this way, the external schema
provides a view of the data that corresponds to the nature of each task.
The external schema is more than a subset of the conceptual schema. While items in the external
schema must be derivable from the conceptual schema, this could be a complicated process,
involving computation and other activities.
The conceptual schema
The conceptual schema describes the universe of interest to the users of the database system. For a
company, for example, it would provide a description of all of the data required to be stored in a
database system. From this organization-wide description of the data, external schemas can be
derived to provide the data for specific users or to support particular tasks.
At the level of the conceptual schema we are concerned with the data itself, rather than storage or the
way data is physically accessed on disk. The definition of storage and access details is the preserve of
the internal schema.
The internal schema
A database will have only one internal schema, which contains definitions of the way in which data is
physically stored. The interface between the internal schema and the conceptual schema identifies
how an element in the conceptual schema is stored, and how it may be accessed.
If the internal schema is changed, this will need to be addressed in the interface between the internal
and the conceptual schemas, but the conceptual and external schemas will not need to change. This
means that changes in physical storage devices such as disks, and changes in the way files are
organized on storage devices, are transparent to users and application programs.
In distinguishing between 'logical' and 'physical' views of a system, it should be noted that the
difference could depend on the nature of the user. While 'logical' describes the user angle, and
'physical' relates to the computer view, database designers may regard relations (for staff records) as
logical and the database itself as physical. This may contrast with the perspective of a systems
programmer, who may consider data files as logical in concept, but their implementation on magnetic
disks in cylinders, tracks and sectors as physical.

Data Abstraction in DBMS

Database systems are made-up of complex data structures. To ease the user interaction with database,
the developers hide internal irrelevant details from users. This process of hiding irrelevant details
from user is called data abstraction.
We have three levels of abstraction:
Physical level: This is the lowest level of data abstraction. It describes how data is actually stored in
database. You can get the complex data structure details at this level.

Logical level: This is the middle level of 3-level data abstraction architecture. It describes what data
is stored in database.

View level: Highest level of data abstraction. This level describes the user interaction with database
system.

Example: Let’s say we are storing customer information in a customer table. At physical level these
records can be described as blocks of storage (bytes, gigabytes, terabytes etc.) in memory. These
details are often hidden from the programmers.

At the logical level these records can be described as fields and attributes along with their data types,
their relationship among each other can be logically implemented. The programmers generally work
at this level because they are aware of such things about database systems.

At view level, user just interact with system with the help of GUI and enter the details at the screen,
they are not aware of how the data is stored and what data is stored; such details are hidden from
them.

Physical data independence

In a database environment, if there is a requirement to change the structure of a particular file of data
held on disk, this will be recorded in the internal schema. The interface between the internal schema
and the conceptual schema will be amended to reflect this, but there will be no need to change the
external schema. This means that any such change of physical data storage is not transparent to users
and application programs. This approach removes the problem of physical data dependence.
Logical data independence
Any changes to the conceptual schema can be isolated from the external schema and the internal
schema; such changes will be reflected in the interface between the conceptual schema and the other
levels. This achieves logical data independence. What this means, effectively, is that changes can be
made at the conceptual level, where the overall model of an organization’s data is specified, and these
changes can be made independently of both the physical storage level, and the external level seen by
individual users. The changes are handled by the interfaces between the conceptual, middle layer, and
the physical and external layers.
DBMS Schema
Definition of schema: Design of a database is called the schema. Schema is of three types: Physical
schema, logical schema and view schema.

For example: In the following diagram, we have a schema that shows the relationship between three
tables: Course, Student and Section. The diagram only shows the design of the database, it doesn’t
show the data present in those tables. Schema is only a structural view (design) of a database as
shown in the diagram below.

The design of a database at physical level is called physical schema, how the data stored in blocks of
storage is described at this level.

Design of database at logical level is called logical schema, programmers and database
administrators work at this level, at this level data can be described as certain types of data records
gets stored in data structures, however the internal details such as implementation of data structure is
hidden at this level (available at physical level).

Design of database at view level is called view schema. This generally describes end user interaction
with database systems.

DBMS Instance
Definition of instance: The data stored in database at a particular moment of time is called instance
of database. Database schema defines the variable declarations in tables that belong to a particular
database; the value of these variables at a moment of time is called the instance of that database.

For example, lets say we have a single table student in the database, today the table has 100 records,
so today the instance of the database has 100 records. Lets say we are going to add another 100
records in this table by tomorrow so the instance of database tomorrow will have 200 records in table.
In short, at a particular moment the data stored in database is called the instance, that changes over
time when we add or delete data from the database.

Different types of Database Users

Database users are categorized based up on their interaction with the data base.
These are seven types of data base users in DBMS.
Database Administrator (DBA) :
Database Administrator (DBA) is a person/team who defines the schema and also controls the 3
levels of database.
The DBA will then create a new account id and password for the user if he/she need to access the data
base.
DBA is also responsible for providing security to the data base and he allows only the authorized
users to access/modify the data base.
• DBA also monitors the recovery and back up and provide technical support.
• The DBA has a DBA account in the DBMS which called a system or superuser
account.
• DBA repairs damage caused due to hardware and/or software failures.

Naive / Parametric End Users :

Parametric End Users are the unsophisticated who don’t have any DBMS knowledge but they
frequently use the data base applications in their daily life to get the desired results.
For examples, Railway’s ticket booking users are naive users. Clerks in any bank are a naive user
because they don’t have any DBMS knowledge but they still use the database and perform their
given task.

System Analyst :
System Analyst is a user who analyzes the requirements of parametric end users. They check
whether all the requirements of end users are satisfied.

Sophisticated Users :
Sophisticated users can be engineers, scientists, business analyst, who are familiar with the
database. They can develop their own data base applications according to their requirement. They
don’t write the program code but they interact the data base by writing SQL queries directly
through the query processor.

Data Base Designers :

Data Base Designers are the users who design the structure of data base which includes tables,
indexes, views, constraints, triggers, stored procedures. He/she controls what data must be stored
and how the data items to be related.

Application Program :
Application Program are the back end programmers who writes the code for the application
programs. They are the computer professionals. These programs could be written in Programming
languages such as Visual Basic, Developer, C, FORTRAN, COBOL etc.

Casual Users / Temporary Users :

Casual Users are the users who occasionally use/access the data base but each time when they
access the data base they require the new information, for example, Middle or higher level
manager.
Types of databases

Depending upon the usage requirements, there are following types of databases available in the
market −

• Centralised database.
• Distributed database.
• Personal database.
• End-user database.
• Commercial database.
• NoSQL database.
• Operational database.
• Relational database.
• Cloud database.
• Object-oriented database.
• Graph database.

Centralized Database
The information(data) is stored at a centralized location and the users from different locations can access this data. This type of database
contains application procedures that help the users to access the data even from a remote location.

Various kinds of authentication procedures are applied for the verification and validation of end users, likewise, a registration number is
provided by the application procedures which keep a track and record of data usage. The local area office handles this thing.
Distributed Database
Just opposite of the centralized database concept, the distributed database has contributions from the common database as well as the
information captured by local computers also. The data is not at one place and is distributed at various sites of an organization. These
sites are connected to each other with the help of communication links which helps them to access the distributed data easily.

You can imagine a distributed database as a one in which various portions of a database are stored in multiple different locations(physical)
along with the application procedures which are replicated and distributed among various points in a network.

There are two kinds of distributed database, viz. homogenous and heterogeneous. The databases which have same underlying hardware
and run over same operating systems and application procedures are known as homogeneous DDB, for eg. All physical locations in a
DDB. Whereas, the operating systems, underlying hardware as well as application procedures can be different at various sites of a DDB
which is known as heterogeneous DDB.

Personal Database
Data is collected and stored on personal computers which is small and easily manageable. The data is generally used by the same
department of an organization and is accessed by a small group of people.

4.End User Database

The end user is usually not concerned about the transaction or operations done at various levels and is only aware of the product which
may be a software or an application. Therefore, this is a shared database which is specifically designed for the end user, just like different
levels’ managers. Summary of whole information is collected in this database.

5.Commercial Database
These are the paid versions of the huge databases designed uniquely for the users who want to access the information for help. These
databases are subject specific, and one cannot afford to maintain such a huge information. Access to such databases is provided through
commercial links.
6.NoSQL Database
These are used for large sets of distributed data. There are some big data performance issues which are effectively handled by relational
databases, such kind of issues are easily managed by NoSQL databases. There are very efficient in analyzing large size unstructured
data that may be stored at multiple virtual servers of the cloud.

7.Operational Database
Information related to operations of an enterprise is stored inside this database. Functional lines like marketing, employee relations,
customer service etc. require such kind of databases.

Relational Databases
These databases are categorized by a set of tables where data gets fit into a pre-defined category. The table consists of rows and
columns where the column has an entry for data for a specific category and rows contains instance for that data defined according to the
category. The Structured Query Language (SQL) is the standard user and application program interface for a relational database.

There are various simple operations that can be applied over the table which makes these databases easier to extend, join two databases
with a common relation and modify all existing applications.

Cloud Databases
Now a day, data has been specifically getting stored over clouds also known as a virtual environment, either in a hybrid cloud, public or
private cloud. A cloud database is a database that has been optimized or built for such a virtualized environment. There are various
benefits of a cloud database, some of which are the ability to pay for storage capacity and bandwidth on a per-user basis, and they provide
scalability on demand, along with high availability.

A cloud database also gives enterprises the opportunity to support business applications in a software-as-a-service deployment.
Object-Oriented Databases
An object-oriented database is a collection of object-oriented programming and relational database. There are various items which are
created using object-oriented programming languages like C++, Java which can be stored in relational databases, but object-oriented
databases are well-suited for those items.

An object-oriented database is organized around objects rather than actions, and data rather than logic. For example, a multimedia record
in a relational database can be a definable data object, as opposed to an alphanumeric value.

Graph Databases
The graph is a collection of nodes and edges where each node is used to represent an entity and each edge describes the relationship
between entities. A graph-oriented database, or graph database, is a type of NoSQL database that uses graph theory to store, map and
query relationships.

Graph databases are basically used for analyzing interconnections. For example, companies might use a graph database to mine data
about customers from social media.
Database Languages
A database system provides a data-definition language to specify the database schema and a data-
manipulation language to express database queries and up-dates. These are the components of SQL
language which is the language for Oracle database.

Data-Manipulation Language
A data-manipulation language (DML) is a language that enables users to access or manipulate data
as organized by the appropriate data model. The types of access are:
• Retrieval of information stored in the database
• Insertion of new information into the database
• Deletion of information from the database
• Modification of information stored in the database
There are basically two types:
Procedural DML

Procedural DML is used to tell the system what data is needed and how to take the data.
Procedural DML is embedded into a high-level programming language.

Example of Data Manipulation Language Using Java:

try{

Statement st = connection.createStatement();

ResultSet rs = st.executeQuery("SELECT * FROM students");

while(rs.next){
 String s = rs.getString(1);

//dst...

} catch(SQLException e){}

Resultset declare what data is needed, which are included in the line of the SQL query SELECT *
FROM students. While the while line states the way to retrieve the data.
Non Procedural DML

Non-procedural DML is used to declare what data is needed and not how the data is retrieved. Non
procedural also called declarative programming.

Example of Non Procedural DML:

SELECT … FROM … WHERE …

INSERT INTO … VALUES …

UPDATE … SET … WHERE …

DELETE FROM … WHERE …

Example of SQL statement:

INSERT INTO Persons (Id, LastName, FirstName)

VALUES (5, 'Azuharu', 'Fahmi')

Data-Definition Language
We specify a database schema by a set of definitions expressed by a special language called a data-
definition language (DDL).
The DDL is also used to specify additional properties of the data.
We specify the storage structure and access methods used by the database system by a set of
statements in a special type of DDL called a data storage and definition language.
The data values stored in the database must satisfy certain consistency constraints. For example,
suppose the university requires that the account balance of a department must never be negative.
The DDL provides facilities to specify such constraints. The database system checks these
constraints every time the database is updated.
The following are the types of constraints:

• Domain Constraints
A domain of possible values must be associated with every attribute (for example, integer types,
character types, date/time types). Declaring an attribute to be of a particular domain acts as a
constraint on the values that it can take. Domain constraints are the most elementary form of
integrity constraint. They are tested easily by the system whenever a new data item is entered into
the database.
• Referential Integrity
There are cases where we wish to ensure that a value that appears in one relation for a given set of
attributes also appears in a certain set of attributes in another relation (referential integrity). For
example, the department listed for each course must be one that actually exists. More precisely, the
dept name value in a course record must appear in the dept name attribute of some record of the
department relation. Database modifications can cause violations of referential integrity. When a
referential-integrity constraint is violated, the normal procedure is to reject the action that caused the
violation.
• Assertions
An assertion is any condition that the database must always satisfy. Domain constraints and
referential-integrity constraints are special forms of assertions. However, there are many constraints
that we cannot express by using only these special forms. For example, “Every department must
have at least five courses offered every semester” must be expressed as an assertion. When an
assertion is created, the system tests it for validity. If the assertion is valid, then any future
modification to the database is allowed only if it does not cause that assertion to be violated.
• Authorization
We may want to differentiate among the users as far as the type of access they are permitted on
various data values in the database. These differentiations are expressed in terms of authorization,
the most common being: read authorization, which allows reading, but not modification, of data;
insert authorization, which allows insertion of new data, but not modification of existing data;
update authorization, which allows modification, but not deletion, of data; and delete authorization,
which allows deletion of data. We may assign the user all, none, or a combination of these types of
authorization.
The DDL, just like any other programming language, gets as input some instructions (statements)
and generates some output. The output of the DDL is placed in the data dictionary, which contains
metadata— that is, data about data.
The data dictionary is considered to be a special type of table that can only be accessed and
updated by the database system itself (not a regular user). The database system consults the data
dictionary before reading or modifying actual data.
Database Interfaces:

A database management system (DBMS) interface is a user interface which is seen by the user.
User Interface are often graphical or at least partly graphical (GUI – graphical user interface)
constructed and offer tools which make the interaction with the DBMS easier.
An interface can be used to manipulate the Database either for adding the data, or deleting some
data, or updating some data, or for viewing the data present in the database.

Menu-Based Interfaces for Web Clients or Browsing –

These interfaces present the user with lists of options (called menus) that lead the user through
the formation of a request. Basic advantage of using menus is that they removes the tension of
remembering specific commands and syntax of any query language, rather than query is basically
composed step by step by collecting or picking options from a menu that is basically shown by
the system. Pull-down menus are a very popular technique in Web based interfaces. They are
also often used in browsing interface which allow a user to look through the contents of a
database in an exploratory and unstructured manner.

Other example: Searching for some item on shopping web site

Forms-Based Interfaces –
A forms-based interface displays a form to each user. Users can fill out all of the form entries to
insert a new data, or they can fill out only certain entries, in which case the DBMS will redeem
same type of data for other remaining entries. This type of forms are usually designed or created
and programmed for the users that have no expertise in operating system. Many DBMSs
have forms specification languages which are special languages that help specify such forms.
Other example: Teacher adding attendance of students in the system
Graphical User Interface –
A GUI typically displays a schema to the user in diagrammatic form. The user then can specify a
query by manipulating the diagram. In many cases, GUI’s utilize both menus and forms. Most
GUIs use a pointing device such as mouse, to pick certain part of the displayed schema diagram.
Example: Let say you are watching a video on Youtube. If you press the subscribe button , either
with a finger or a mouse, it will turn grey. There are forms user in youtube too, like you search some
topic on Youtube. There are Menus also used in Youtube, like Youtube shows you different videos
on different channels, also it gives you Menus to select videos of certain length or from certain time.
All the GUI interfaces are visually graphics and change according to the action user takes. Hence
graphical user interface.
Natural language Interfaces –
These interfaces accept request written in English or some other language and attempt to
understand them. A Natural language interface has its own schema, which is similar to the
database conceptual schema as well as a dictionary of important words.
The natural language interface refers to the words in its schema as well as to the set of standard
words in a dictionary to interpret the request. If the interpretation is successful, the interface
generates a high-level query corresponding to the natural language and submits it to the DBMS for
processing, otherwise a dialogue is started with the user to clarify any provided condition or
request. The main disadvantage with this is that the capabilities of this type of interfaces are not
that much advance.
Example: You want to find out which is the fastest car in the world, so you search for the fastest
car in India on the search engine like Google, which is a Natural Language interface. The Natural
Language interface then looks at the important words in the input by the user: Fastest,car,India
Now it will go into the database of cars and search all the cars that are available in India. Then it
will check the car with the highest speed among the cars available in India. And finally it will
show the outcome of the search to the user.

Speech Input and Output –

There is an limited use of speech say it for a query or an answer to a question or being a result of a
request it is becoming commonplace Applications with limited vocabularies such as inquiries for
telephone directory, flight arrival/departure, and bank account information are allowed speech for
input and output to enable ordinary folks to access this information.

The Speech input is detected using predefined words and used to set up the parameters that are
supplied to the queries. For output, a similar conversion from text or numbers into speech takes
place.
Example: Most of you must have used either Siri on apple, or OK google, Alexa or Cortana to ask
some question like,
“Ok, google, find the value of square root of 729”
“Alexa what is the capital of Kathmandu”
And the speech user interface interprets your speech input and processes the data from the
database and after successful; interpretation answers you back in speech

Interfaces for DBA –

Most database system contains privileged commands that can be used only by the DBA’s staff.
These include commands for creating accounts, setting system parameters, granting account
authorization, changing a schema, reorganizing the storage structures of databases.

Interfaces for Parametric Users –

Parametric users are users that have a small set of operations that need to be performed and that
too repeatedly.
This makes it important to reduce the amount of keystrokes for each operation.
So the programmers program such interface so that the operations can be performed with a single
key stroke
Example: Let say there is an ATM. The ATM has limited operations to do like, check the balance,
withdraw the money or change pin of the card. So all the operations which are complex
programmatically but the queries are generated with minimal keystrokes, as there are only three
operations the ATM has to perform and nothing more.