dbms

INTRODUCTION

1) drawbacks of using file system

data redundancy and inconsistency

difficulty in accessing data

data isolation

integrity problems

atomicity of updates

concurrent access by multiple users

security problems

2) what is a database

collection of related data

data - known facts that can be recorded and have implicit

meaning

3) properties of a database

represents some aspects of real world or miniworld or

universe of discourse (UoD)

logically coherent collection of data with inherent meaning

designed, built and populated with data for a specific

purpose

data has some source, there is some degree of interaction

with events in real world and there is an audience
interested in the contents of the database

can be of any size and complexity

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 may be generated and maintained manually or may be
computerised

4) what is a DBMS

computerised system that enables users to create and

maintain a database

general purpose software that facilitates the process of

defining, constructing, manipulating and sharing of
databases among various users and applications

defining - stating constraints, data structures and

types to be stored in the DB
DB catalog or dictionary - meta data

constructing - process of storing data on some storage

medium that is controlled by DBMS

manipulating - querying DB to retrieve specific data,

update DB to reflect changes in miniworld and generate
reports from data

sharing - users and programs allowed access to DB

simultaneously

5) what is a query

causes some data to be retrieved

6) what is a transaction

causes some data to be read and some data to be written

into DB

7) what does DB provide

protection -
* system protection against hardware and software
malfunction

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 * security protection against unauthorised or malicious
access

8) characteristics of DB approach

self describing nature of DBS

use of meta data since general purpose DBMS is not written
to serve a specific purpose
structure of the data files is stored in the DBMS catalog
separately from access programs in DBS and this property is
called program data independence

program operation independence - user application programs

can operate on the data by invoking operations through
their names and arguments regardless of how the operations
are implemented

insulation between programs and data, data abstraction

data abstraction - characteristic that allows program data
independence and program operation independence is called
data abstraction
DBMS provides user with conceptual representation of data
that does not include many details as to how operations are
implemented

data model - type of data abstraction that is used to

provide conceptual representation

support of multiple views of data

DB has many users and each may need different view of DB

view - may be subset of DB or may contain virtual data that

is different from DB files but is not explicitly stored

sharing of data and multiuser transaction processing

must include concurrency control software to ensure several

users trying to update same data do so in a controlled
manner
DBMS must enforce certain transaction properties
(atomicity, consistency, insulation and durability)

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 9) actors on the scene

database administrators (DBA)

administering the resources - DB, DBMS software

responsible to handle security breaches and poor system

response time

authorise access to DB, coordinate and monitor its use,

acquire software and hardware resources as needed

database designers

identifying the data to be stored in the DB and choosing

appropriate structures to represent and store the data

communicating with all DB users to understand their

requirements and create a design accordingly

develop views of the DB that meet data and processing

requirements of each potential group of users

end users

people whose jobs require access to DB for querying,

updating and generating reports

3 types of end users

casual end users - occasional access and use

sophisticated db query language to specify their
requests

naive or parametric end users - constant querying and

updating DB and use standard types of queries and
updates called canned transactions

sophisticated end users - thoroughly familiarise

themselves with facilities of DBMS to implement their
own applications to meet complex requirements

system analysts and application programmers

system analysts - determine requirements of end users

especially naive and parametric end users and develop

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 specifications for standard canned transactions that
meet these requirements

application programmers - implement these specifications

as programs and then test, debug, document and maintain
these canned transactions

10) advantages of DBMS approach

controlling redundancy

in file system there could be multiple file formats and

hence duplication of information in different files which
results in duplication of effort, wastage of space and
inconsistency.

restricting unauthorised access

when multiple users share DB, most users are not authorised
to access all info

some may only be allowed to retrieve data whereas others

can retrieve and update DB

DBMS provides a security and authorisation subsystem which

DBA uses to create accounts and specifies account
restrictions

providing persistent storage for program objects

object oriented DBS uses DBMS to store complex data

structures- this object is said to be persistent

providing storage structures and search techniques for

efficient query processing

DB is stored on disk, DBMS provides specialised data

structures and search techniques to speed up disk search
for desired records
indexes are based on tree data structure or hash data
structure that are suitable modified for disk search

providing backup and recovery

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 permitting inferencing and actions using rules

providing multiple user interfaces

enforcing integrity constraints

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