CS403 Midterm Highlighted Handouts by MAS All Rounder

Lecture No. 01

Reading Material

“Database Systems Principles, Design and Implementation” written by Catherine Ricardo, Maxwell Macmillan. Chapter 1.

Overview of Lecture o Introduction to the course o Database definitions o Importance of databases o Introduction to File Processing Systems o Advantages of the Database Approach

Introduction to the course This course is first (fundamental) course on database management systems. The course discusses different topics of the databases. We will be covering both the theoretical and practical aspects of databases. As a student to have a better understanding of the subject, it is very necessary that you concentrate on the concepts discussed in the course.

Areas to be covered in this Course: o Database design and application development: How do we represent a real-world system in the form of a database? This is one major topic covered in this course. It comprises of different stages, we will discuss all these stages one by one.

o Concurrency and robustness: How does a DBMS allow many users to access data concurrently, and how does it protect against failures?

o Efficiency and Scalability: How does the database cope with large amounts of data?

o Study of tools to manipulate databases: In order to practically implement, that is, to perform different operations on databases some tools are required. The operations on databases include right from creating them to add, remove and modify data in the database and to access by different ways. The tools that we will be studying are a manipulation language (SQL) and a DBMS (SQL Server).

Database definitions: Definitions are important, especially in technical subjects because definition describes very comprehensively the purpose and the core idea behind the thing. Databases have been defined differently in literature. We are discussing different definitions here, if we concentrate on these definitions, we find that they support each other and as a result of the understanding of these definitions, we establish a better understanding of use, working and to some extent the components of a database.

Def 1: A shared collection of logically related data, designed to meet the information needs of multiple users in an organization. The term database is often erroneously referred to as a synonym for a “database management system (DBMS)”. They are not equivalent and it will be explained in the next section.

Def 2: A collection of data: part numbers, product codes, customer information, etc. It usually refers to data organized and stored on a computer that can be searched and retrieved by a computer program.

Def 3: A data structure that stores metadata, i.e. data about data. More generally we can say an organized collection of information.

Def 4: A collection of information organized and presented to serve a specific purpose. (A telephone book is a common database.) A computerized database is an updated, organized file of machine readable information that is rapidly searched and retrieved by computer.

Def 5: An organized collection of information in computerized format.

Def 6: A collection of related information about a subject organized in a useful manner that provides a base or foundation for procedures such as retrieving information, drawing conclusions, and making decisions. Retrieve: find or extract (information stored in a computer). Example of databases: Customer address, student information, employee details, hospital staff details, schools information, hospitals data etc, Def 7: A Computerized representation of any organizations flow of information and storage of data.

Each of the above given definition is correct, and describe database from slightly variant perspectives. From exam point of view, anyone will do. However, within this course, we will be referring first of the above definitions more frequently, and concepts discussed in the definition like, logically related data, shared collection should be clear. Another