Intro to Databases

Instructor: Sadia Razaq

First Session: Introduction
Purpose of this course
 An introduction to database
management systems
 Help students understand the benefits
that can be attained by using
Relational DBMS
 Enable students to become comfortable
in designing database schemas in SQL,
plus writing CRUD functions

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Course Summary
 This course covers these topics:
 Introduction to Databases & their users
 DBMS Concepts & Architecture
 Data Modeling using the ERM
 Relational Data Model & Algebra
 SQL (Schemas, Queries, Constraints)
 Functional Dependencies
 Normalization

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Course Books
 Primary Text:
 An Introduction to Database Systems – 8e.
 By C. J. Date
 Reference Text:
 Fundamentals of Database Systems – 4e.
 By Ramez Elmasri and S. B. Navathe

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History
 Manual System – 1950’s:
 Data was stored as paper record.
 Huge manpower involved.
 Time was wasted when searching a
particular record.
 Early 1960’s:
 Magnetic tapes for storage.
 Punched cards for input.

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History
 Late 1960s and 1970s:
 Hard disks allowed direct access to data.
 Non – Relational Database.
 1980s – Present era:
 Relational Database.

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What was the need for Databases?
 The concept of a file system is where
our story begins
 Everything was done one way
 “Master Files” held information
 “Transaction Files” told the file system
what to do
 “New Master File” was created in place of
the old one
 “Error Files” stored what went wrong
 These were used for a very long time
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The File System

Transaction Error
File Log

Master File New Master File

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What was wrong with file system
approach?
 Too much programming knowledge
necessary
 Everyone who used them had to have a fairly
technical background
 In order to transact much of what was done you
had to know a lot about the system and files
 Took a good while to get information to where it
needed to go
 Hard to secure

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Now with Databases
 Built-in Support for
 Security & Access Control
 Constraints & Triggers
 Transactions
 Performance Tuning

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What is a Database?
 Basic Definition
 A Database is a collection of data files
 Complex Definition
 A Database is a structure that contains
information about many kinds of entities
and about the relationships between
those entities.

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DBMS Environment

Data
Hardware Software Procedures People

Bridge

Machine Human

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DBMS Roles
 Database Administrator
 Database Designer
 Application Developer
 End - Users

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DBMS Roles

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Entities
 Entity – a person, place, thing, or event
 Entities become our categories of
information
 Customers
 Products
 Orders
 We organize our information in these major
entities (categories)
 These categories become the tables, that
will store our data

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Relationships
 Relationship – an association between
entities
 Relationships define how our data
files will talk to each other
 Customers “Place” Orders
 Orders “Are For” Products
 There are several key types of
relationships that we will talk about
later on

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More about Entities
 What does everyone have in common?
 Entities have basic properties too
 Properties of entities are called Attributes
 Attributes describe our categories
 A “Customer” has some basic properties
 Name
 Phone Number
 Address

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