Characteristics of DB

Approach
 Outline
We will start with
 The ‘traditional’ file processing approach.

Then
 The DB approach to overcome the limitations of the
file system approach.

Finally, we conclude with

 DB actors; the people who use the DB itself or who
design and maintain the database
The traditional file system approach
The traditional file system approach
 Usually each user create and maintain his own
data files. In many cases:
 A different programs is used by different users in
order to construct and maintain the data.

 There is no way that one can show the same

program is used by different users or the same data
structure is followed by these users.
 File System Disadvantages
 Data redundancy
 Inconsistency
 Difficulties in searching
 Difficulties in data sharing
 Concurrent access of data is not achievable
 Difficulties on providing backup and recovery
The DB Approach
DB Approaches
Characteristics
 DB Approaches Characteristics
Self Describing Nature of a Database System
 It allows the DBMS software to be application
independent
 A DB system contains not only the database itself but
also a complete definition or description of the
database structure and constraints
 A DBMS catalog stores the description of a particular database
(e.g. data structures, types, and constraints)
 The description is called meta-data.
 This allows the DBMS software to work with different database
applications.
Example of a simplified database catalog
The DBS Environment
 DB Approaches Characteristics
Program-Data Independence
Insulation between programs and data
 The structure of data files is stored in the DB
Catalogue separately from access programs
 Changing the structure of the files doesn't affect
the DBMS software
 Allows changing data structures and storage
organization without having to change the
DBMS access programs
DB Approaches Characteristics
Data Abstraction

 A data model is used to hide storage details and

present the users with a conceptual view of the
database.
 Programs refer to the data model constructs rather
than data storage details
DB Approaches Characteristics
Data Abstraction

External View 1 External View 2

Conceptual Representation

Internal Representation

Data
DB Approaches Characteristics
Example
Conceptual Representation Student
 DB Approaches Characteristics
Example
Internal Representation Student

Data Item Name Starting Position in Record Length in Characters

(bytes)
Name 1 30

StudentNumber 31 4

Class 35 4

Direction 39 4
 DB Approaches Characteristics
Support of multiple views of the Data
 A database typically has many users, each of
whom may require a different perspective or
view of the database

 A view may be a subset of the database or it may

contain virtual data that is derived from the
database files but is not explicitly stored
 DB Approaches Characteristics
Example – University DB

Student Name StudentNumber Class Direction

Course CourseName CourseNumber Credithours Department

Section Section_ID CourseNumber Semester Year Instructor

Grade_Report StudentNumber Section_ID Grade

 DB Approaches Characteristics
Example – Transcript View

TRANSCRIPT Name Student Transcript

CourseNumber Grade Semester Year Section_ID

Ali CS0101 A Fall 2000 11

Ali CS0201 B Spring 2001 21

Ahmed CS0201 A Fall 2002 22

 DB Approaches Characteristics
Multiuser Processing
 Multiple users access the database at the same time
 Concurrency control software is included in the DBMS
to ensure that results of updates is correct or aborted.
 Allowing a set of concurrent users to retrieve from
and to update the database.
 Recovery subsystem ensures each completed transaction
has its effect permanently recorded in the database
 OLTP (Online Transaction Processing) is a major part
of database applications. This allows hundreds of
concurrent transactions to execute per second.
 DB Approaches Characteristics
Example - Multiuser Processing
 Consider an airline application:
Several travel agents use the same database, in
order to make reservation of seats in a certain
flight, so the concurrency database management
system should ensure that each seat in a flight
should accessed by only one agent at a time to
avoid double booking.
DB Actors
 Database Users
 Users may be divided into
 Those who actually use and control the database
content, and those who design, develop and
maintain database applications (called “Actors on the
Scene”), and
 Those who design and develop the DBMS software
and related tools, and the computer systems
operators (called “Workers Behind the Scene”).
 DB Administrators
 Authorize access to the database and coordinate
its use

 Accountable for security and efficiency

problems

 Acquire software and hardware resources as

needed
 DB Designers
 Identify the data to be stored in the database
and choose appropriate structures to represent
and store these data

 Develop views of the database that meets the

data and processing requirements of different
users
 End Users
 People whose jobs require access to the database

 Categories of end users:

 Casual end users
 Naïve or parametric end users
 Sophisticated end users
 Stand-alone users
 System Analysts and
Application Programmers

 Develop and implement specifications based on

end user requirements
 Workers behind the scene
 DBMS designers and implementers

 Tool developers

 Operators and maintenance personnel