IELM 511: Information System design

Introduction

Part 1. ISD for well structured data – relational and other DBMS
Info storage (modeling, normalization)
Info retrieval (Relational algebra, Calculus, SQL)
DB integrated API’s

ISD for systems with non-uniformly structured data

Basics of web-based IS (www, web2.0, …)
Markup’s, HTML, XML
Design tools for Info Sys: UML

Part III: (one out of)

API’s for mobile apps
Security, Cryptography
IS product lifecycles
Algorithm analysis, P, NP, NPC
Agenda

Relational design

1. Converting ER diagram into (a set of) DB tables

2. Normal forms – a theoretical basis for RDB design

(Recap) Example: Banking system
Bank is organized in branches. Each branch is located in a particular city and identified by a
unique name. The bank monitors the assets of each branch.

Customers are identified by their SSN (equiv to HKID). The bank stores each customer’s name
and address. Customers may have accounts, and can take out loans. A customer may be associated
with a particular banker, who may act as a loan officer of personal banker for that customer.

Bank employees are also identified by SSN. The bank stores the Name, address, phone #, start day
of employment of each employee, the name of all dependents of the employee, and the manager of
the employee.

The bank offers two types of accounts: savings and checking. Accounts can be held by more than
one customer, and a customer may have many accounts. Each account has a unique account
number. We store each account’s balance, and the most recent date when the account was accessed
by each customer holding the account. Each savings account has an interest rate, and overdrafts
are recorded for each checking account.

A loan originates art a particular branch, and is held by one or more customers. Each loan has a
unique number. For each loan, the bank stores the loan amount and the payments (date and
amount) . Payment numbers are not unique, but a payment number uniquely identifies a payment
for a specific loan.
(Recap) Bank ER
1

n
n 1 n
m
n m

n
1 1
n
Agenda

Relational design

1. Converting ER diagram into (a set of) DB tables

2. Normal forms – a theoretical basis for RDB design

Converting ER into Relational tables: rationale

There is an informal set of rules to convert ER diagrams into Tables

This is a very good initial design for most DB’s

Normalization can be used to verify/improve this initial design

Basic terminology

- All data is stored in tables

Columns: Attributes
Rows: Tuples

- Domain of an Attribute, A  set of values that A can

have

- Schema  TableName( A1, A2, …, An)

- Tuple, t, of R(A1, A2, …, An) 

ORDERED set of values, < v1, v2, v3, …, vn>
vi  dom( Ai)
All tables in a DB must obey four types of constraints
Constraints on DB tables

A. Domain constraints

t[Ai]  dom( Ai), for all t, Ai

B. Key constraints

Superkey of R: A set of attributes, SK, of R such that

t1[ SK] != t2[SK] whenever t1 ≠ t2

Key: minimal Superkey of R

minimal:
removal of any attribute from Key 
no longer a Superkey of R
Constraints on tables..

B. Key constraints, examples:

CAR( State, LicensePlateNo, VehicleID, Model, Year, Manufacturer)

K1 = { State, LicensePlateNo}
K1 is a minimal Superkey  Key

K2 = { VehicleID } K2  Key (Why ?)

K3 = { VehicleID, Manufacturer}
Superkey ?
Key ?
Constraints on tables...

C. Entity Integrity constraints

If PK is the Primary Key, then
t[PK] != NULL for any tuple t  r( R)

D. Referential constraints
- All referential constraints must be defined
- X(Ai) references Y(Bj)  dom(Ai) = dom(Bj)
- Foreign Key  attributes that reference a Primary Key
Foreign Key examples
EMPLOYEE SSN Name StartDate TelNo MgrSSN

FK
FK
CUSTOMER SSN Name Address BankerSSN
 Converting ER into Relational tables
1. For each regular entity, E,
One table E with all the simple attributes of E.
Select a primary key for E, and mark it.

2. For each binary relation type, R, between entity types, S and T:

For 1:1 relationship between S and T

Either add PK(S) as FK(T), or add PK(T) as FK(R)

For 1:N relationship between S and T (S: the N-side)

Add PK(T) as a foreign key in S.

For M:N relationship, R, between S and T

Create a new table, R, with
the PK’s of S and T as FK’s of P, plus any attributes of R
 Converting ER into Relational tables..

3. For each weak entity type, W, whose identifying entity is E

One table W with all attributes of W and the primary key of E
mark the Primary Key

4. For each multi-valued attribute A,

Create a new table, R,
including A, plus PK of the entity/relationship containing A

5. For each n-ary relationship, R, with degree > 2

Create a table R, with
PK of each participating entity as FK, plus all simple attributes of R
 Converting ER into Relational tables…

6. Specializations*

If P is the highest level entity of an aggregation type,

with specialization entity types R and S. Then:

Create a table for P, with each regular attribute of P.

Create a table for each of R, S, each with all of their

respective attributes, and the primary key of P.

* we will ignore other, special cases of specialization .

 Initial DB design for the bank ER: step 1 (entities)

BRANCH( b-name, city, assets, …)

CUSTOMER( cssn, c-name, street, city, ….)

LOAN( l-no, amount, ….)

PAYMENT( l-no, pay-no, date, amount, ….) 1

EMPLOYEE( e-ssn, e-name, tel, start-date, ….)

n
n 1 n
m
ACCOUNT( ac-no, balance, ….) n m

n
SACCOUNT( ac-no, int-rate, ….) 1 1
n

CACCOUNT( ac-no, od-amt, ….)

 Initial DB design: step 2 (1-1, 1-n relationships)

BRANCH( b-name, city, assets, …)

CUSTOMER( cssn, c-name, street, city, banker, banker-type, ….)

LOAN( l-no, amount, br-name, ….)

PAYMENT( l-no, pay-no, date, amount, ….) 1

EMPLOYEE( e-ssn, e-name, tel, start-date, mgr-ssn, ….)

n
n 1 n
ACCOUNT( ac-no, balance, ….) n m
m

n
SACCOUNT( ac-no, int-rate, ….) 1 1
n

CACCOUNT( ac-no, od-amt, ….)

 Initial DB design: step 3 (m-n relationships)

BRANCH( b-name, city, assets, …)

CUSTOMER( cssn, c-name, street, city, banker, banker-type, ….)

LOAN( l-no, amount, br-name, ….)

PAYMENT( l-no, pay-no, date, amount, ….)

EMPLOYEE( e-ssn, e-name, tel, start-date, mgr-ssn, ….)

1

ACCOUNT( ac-no, balance, ….)

SACCOUNT( ac-no, int-rate, ….) n

n 1 n
m
CACCOUNT( ac-no, od-amt, ….) n m

n
BORROWS( cust-ssn, loan-num, ….) 1 1
n

DEPOSIT( c-ssn, ac-num, access-date….)

Initial DB design: step 4 (multi-valued attributes)
BRANCH( b-name, city, assets)

CUSTOMER( cssn, c-name, street, city, banker, banker-type)

LOAN( l-no, amount, br-name)

PAYMENT( l-no, pay-no, date, amount)

EMPLOYEE( e-ssn, e-name, tel, start-date, mgr-ssn)

1

ACCOUNT( ac-no, balance)

SACCOUNT( ac-no, int-rate)

n
n 1 n
CACCOUNT( ac-no, od-amt) n m
m

BORROWS( cust-ssn, loan-num) n

1 1
DEPOSIT( c-ssn, ac-num, access-date) n

DEPENDENT( emp-ssn, dep-name)

Normalization: the theoretical basis for RDB design

How can we tell if a DB design is ‘Good’ ?

A DB Design is good if:

(1) it provides a way to store all information in the system

(2) the design is not bad

How can we tell if a DB design is ‘Bad’ ?

 Normalization: the theoretical basis for RDB design

Bad DB design examples:

CUST_LOAN( cssn, cname, addr, banker, banker-type, loan-no, amt, branch)

CUST_DEPOSIT( cssn, cname, addr, banker, banker-type, ac-no, bal, access-date)

(a) Information is stored redundantly

(b) Insertion anomalies

(c) Deletion Anomalies

(d) Modification Anomalies

Normalization: the theoretical basis for RDB design..

Design requirement: Avoid too many NULL values in some rows

STUDENT( SID, Name, Phone, Email, SocietyName, MemberNo)

OR

STUDENT( SID, Name, Phone, Email)

MEMBERSHIP( SID, SocietyName, MembershipNo)

 Bad DB Designs..

- Spurious Tuples must not be created when ‘join’-ing tables

Example: A (bad) design

PROJECT_PARTS SUPPLIER_PARTS
supp_no supplier
ProjectNo PartNo SupplierNo PartNo Qty
Proj1 P1 S1 P1 10
part supplies
Proj2 P1 S2 P2 25
part_no
project proj_no Proj2 P2 S2 P1 20

- Who supplied P2 to Proj2 ?

-- the answer requires us to ‘join’ the two tables

- Who supplied P1 to Proj2 ?

Normal forms: functional dependencies

A set of attributes, X, functionally determines a set of attributes Y

if the value of X determines a unique value for Y.

NOTATION: X  Y

X  Y implies that
for any two tuples, t1 and t2,
if t1[X] = t2[X], then t1[ Y] = t2[ Y]

Concept of FD is important in development of normalized DB designs.

Examples:

In table CUSTOMER, {SSN}  {Customer name}

In table PAYMENT, { l-no, pay-no}  { date, amount}

 First normal form, 1NF

A table is in 1NF if it does not contain

- any composite attributes,
- any multi-valued attributes,
- any nested relations

Any non-1NF schema can be converted into a set of 1NF schemas

Composite Multi-valued STUDENT_COURSES_1NF

STUDENT_COURSES
SID Lname Fname Sem Yr Course
SID Name SemYr Courses 0401 Smith John Fall 05 ie110
0401 John Smith Fall 05 ie110, ie215 0401 Smith John Fall 05 ie215

0402 Jane Doe Fall 05 ie110, ie317 0402 Doe Jane Fall 05 ie110
0402 Doe Jane Fall 05 ie317

Not 1NF 1NF

First normal form, 1NF..
EMPLOYEE_PROJECTS Nested

Projects
SSN Lname Fname ProjNo Hours
P1 10 Not 1NF
1123 Smith John
P2 5
P2 10
3312 Doe Jane
P3 5

EMPLOYEE EMP_PROJECTS

SSN Lname Fname SSN ProjNo Hours

1123 Smith John 1123 P1 10
3312 Doe Jane 1123 P2 5
3312 P2 10
1NF
3312 P3 5
Second normal form, 2NF

Prime Attribute:
An attribute that is a member of the primary key

Full functional Dependency:

A FD, Y  Z, such that X  Z is false for all X  Y

{SSN, PNumber}  {Hours} Full FD ?

{SSN, PNumber}  EName Full FD ?

 Second normal form, 2NF..

A schema R is in 2NF if every non-prime attribute A in R is

fully functionally dependent on the primary key.

CUST_DEPOSIT( cssn, cname, addr, banker, banker-type, ac-no, bal, access-date)

is not in 2NF, because:

PK = { cssn, ac-no}, but {cssn}  {cname}.

Any non-2NF design can be converted into a set of 2NF designs

CUSTOMER( cssn, c-name, addr, banker, banker-type)

ACCOUNT( ac-no, balance)

DEPOSIT( c-ssn, ac-num, access-date)

Third normal from, 3NF

A Transitive Functional Dependency is an FD, Y  Z

that can be derived from two FDs Y  X and X  Z.

Example (poor DB design):

CUST_BANKER( cssn, cname, addr, banker, banker-type, banker-mgr)

{cssn}  {banker-mgr} is a transitive FD [why ?]

Any non-3NF design can be converted into a set of 2NF designs

CUSTOMER( cssn, c-name, street, city, banker, banker-type)

EMPLOYEE( e-ssn, mgr-ssn)

Concluding remarks on normal forms

1. Normalized designs avoid problems associated with “bad” designs

2. Notice that informal ER diagram  Tables mapping yields 3NF schemas!

3. General 3NF:
Notice our definition of 3NF depends on our selection of a PK.
If a table has multiple choices of PK’s, then further problems may arise

There is a general 3NF definition that avoids such issues.

However, in practical cases, such issues are rare and outside our scope.
References and Further Reading

Silberschatz, Korth, Sudarshan, Database Systems Concepts, McGraw Hill

Next: Relational algebra, calculus, and SQL