W1-2-60-1-6

JOMO KENYATTA UNIVERSITY OF AGRICULTURE AND TECHNOLOGY

UNIVERSITY EXAMINATIONS 2018/2019
THIRD YEAR FIRST SEMESTER SPECIAL/SUPPLEMENTARY
EXAMINATION FOR THE DEGREE OF BACHELOR OF SCIENCE IN
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
ICS 2404 : ADVANCED DATABASE MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS
DATE: FEBRUARY 2019 TIME: 2 HOURS
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INSTRUCTIONS:
ANSWER QUESTION ONE [COMPULSORY] AND ANY OTHER TWO
QUESTONS
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QUESTION ONE [COMPULSORY] [30 MARKS]
(a) Define the following terminologies in relation to DBMS.
(i) Data mining [1 mark]
(ii) Distributed databases [1 mark]
(iii) Client /server [1 mark]
(iv) Middle ware [1 mark]
(v) Serializability [1 mark]
(b) Briefly explain the four general phases of data mining [8 marks]
(c) Concurrency control coordinates the simultaneous execution of transaction
in a database system. Explain the three main problems due to concurrency
execution. [6 marks]
(d) Identify two types of locks used in database system. [2 marks]
(e) Briefly explain the business benefits and limitations of distributed databases.
[6 marks]

QUESTION TWO [20 MARKS]

(a) (i) Define database performance tuning. [2 marks]
(ii) Briefly Explain the query processing phases on a DBMS server.
[6 marks]

(b) “The concept for indexing is crucial in speeding up data access”.

Justify the above statement. [6 marks]
(c) Database security is concerned with protecting the data base against
external or internal threat. Identify and briefly explain key issues relating
to database security that you must address as a database administrator.
[8 marks]
QUESTION THREE [20 MARKS]
(a) The concept of locking and lock granularity is very crucial to ensuring
concurrent control. Examine the different levels of locking in a multi-user
DBMS. [10 marks]
(b) Discuss the ACID test properties of a transaction. [8 marks]
(c) Define the term Business intelligence. [2 marks]

QUESTION FOUR [20 MARKS]

(a) Quary optimization aims to minimize the total cost associated with the
execution for a request. Explain the two main classification of quary
optimization algorithms. [4 marks]
(b) Analyze the factors that may influence the decision to use data replication.
[6 marks]
(c) Define and explain the different types of distribution transparency.
[4 marks]
(d) Describe the ETL process with respect to data warehousing . [6 marks]

QUESTION FIVE [20 MARKS]

(a) Consider the following transaction occurrence in a stock data base
concurrency.
Transaction Action Value stored
 T1 Read Product - on hand - 100
 T2 Read Product - on hand - 100
 T1 Product on hand=100+60
 T2 Product on –hand = 100-40
 T1 Write product on-hand -160
 T2 Write product on-hand 60

Required:
(a) Identify and explain what concurrent issue occurred in the stock database
scenario. [4 marks]
(b) (i) Re-write (show the proper order of transaction execution to avoid the
problem identified. [3 marks]
(ii) The database recovery process involves bringing the database to a
consistent state after failure. Explain two general procedures used in
transaction recovery. [4 marks]
(iii) Discuss three critical events that can cause a database to become non
operational and compromise the integrity of the data. [3 marks]