Introduction to Database Management Systems: Course Overview and Resources

1. Introduction

2. Teaching and Resources • Lecturer Dr Jun Hong • Teaching Assistant Maire Bowler • Textbooks Required: Database System Concepts. 6th Edition, by Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan Reference: JDBC API tutorial and reference, by Fisher, Ellis and Bruce, preview available on books.google.co.uk Reference: Web Data Mining: Exploring Hyperlinks, Contents, and Usage Data. 2nd Edition, Springer, 2011, by Bing Liu. • Slides by Authors http://www.db-book.com/ • Slides by Lecturer (simplified and revised slides) and Other Course Materials Queen’s Online

3. Course Structure • Course structure • 30+ lectures and tutorials • 9 practical sessions (starting from Week 3, 8th October) • Lecture locations and times • Mondays: 9 – 10 am, DKB/LG/115 • Thursdays: 9 – 10 am, DKB/LG/115 • Fridays: 9 – 10 am, DKB/LG/115 • Practical locations and times • Fridays: 11 am – 1 pm, BCB/0G/012 • Mondays: 11 am – 1 pm, BCB/0G/012 • Thursdays: 1 – 3 pm, BCB/0G/012 • Assessment method • 20% from 3 practical assignments • 80% from final examination (3 hours)

4. Database Management System (DBMS) • DBMS contains information about a particular enterprise • Collection of interrelated data • Set of programs to access the data • An environment that is both convenient and efficient to use • Database Applications: • Banking: customer information, accounts, loans, transactions • Airlines: reservations, schedules • Universities: student information, registration, grades • Sales: customers, products, purchases • Online retailers: order tracking, customized recommendations • Manufacturing: production, inventory, orders, supply chain • Human resources: employee records, salaries, tax deductions • Databases touch all aspects of our lives

5. Purpose of Database Systems • In the early days, database applications were built directly on top of file systems • Drawbacks of using file systems to store data: • Data redundancy and inconsistency • Multiple file formats, duplication of information in different files • Difficulty in accessing data • Need to write a new program to carry out each new task • Data isolation — multiple files and formats • Integrity problems • Integrity constraints (e.g. account balance > 0) become “buried” in program code rather than being stated explicitly • Hard to add new constraints or change existing ones

6. Purpose of Database Systems (Cont.) • Drawbacks of using file systems (cont.) • Atomicity of updates • Failures may leave database in an inconsistent state with partial updates carried out • Example: Transfer of funds from one account to another should either complete or not happen at all • Concurrent access by multiple users • Concurrent accessed needed for performance • Uncontrolled concurrent accesses can lead to inconsistencies • Example: Two people reading a balance and updating it at the same time • Security problems • Hard to provide user access to some, but not all, data • Database systems offer solutions to all the above problems

7. Module Outline • Data Models • Relational model • Entity-relationship model • Data Definition and Manipulation Languages • SQL • Formal languages – relational algebra • Database Design • Using E-R model • Accessing Databases from a Programming Language as Part of Software Applications • Database Theory – Normalization • Data Mining • Association rules • Clustering

8. Data Models • A collection of tools for describing • Data • Data relationships • Data semantics • Data constraints • Relational model • Entity-Relationship data model (mainly for database design)

9. Relational Model Attributes • Example of tabular data in the relational model

10. A Sample Relational Database

11. Data Manipulation Language (DML) • Language for accessing and manipulating the data organized by the appropriate data model • DML also known as query language • Two classes of languages • Procedural – user specifies what data is required and how to get those data • Declarative (nonprocedural) – user specifies what data is required without specifying how to get those data • SQL is the most widely used query language

12. Data Definition Language (DDL) • Specification notation for defining the database schema Example: create tableaccount (account-numberchar(10),balanceinteger) • DDL compiler generates a set of tables stored in a data dictionary • Data dictionary contains metadata (i.e., data about data) • Database schema • Data storage and definition language • Specifies the storage structure and access methods used • Integrity constraints • Domain constraints • Referential integrity (references constraint in SQL) • Assertions • Authorization

13. SQL • SQL: widely used non-procedural language • Example: Find the name of the customer with customer-id 192-83-7465select customer.customer_namefrom customerwherecustomer.customer_id = ‘192-83-7465’ • Example: Find the balances of all accounts held by the customer with customer-id 192-83-7465selectaccount.balancefromdepositor, accountwheredepositor.customer_id = ‘192-83-7465’ anddepositor.account_number = account.account_number • Application programs generally access databases through one of • Language extensions to allow embedded SQL • Application program interface (e.g., ODBC/JDBC) which allow SQL queries to be sent to a database

14. Database Design The process of designing the general structure of the database: • Logical Design – Deciding on the database schema. Database design requires that we find a “good” collection of relation schemas. • Business decision – What attributes should we record in the database? • Computer Science decision – What relation schemas should we have and how should the attributes be distributed among the various relation schemas? • Physical Design – Deciding on the physical layout of the database

15. The Entity-Relationship Model • Models an enterprise as a collection of entities and relationships • Entity: a “thing” or “object” in the enterprise that is distinguishable from other objects • Described by a set of attributes • Relationship: an association among several entities • Represented diagrammatically by an entity-relationship diagram:

16. Normalization • Another method for designing a relational database • To design a set of database schemas in an appropriate normal form. • To determine whether a schema is in a normal form (a set of desirable properties), using functional dependencies. • To transform a bad design with undesirable properties into one in a normal form • Repetition of information • Inability to represent certain information

17. Data Mining • Data mining is also called knowledge discovery and data mining (KDD) • Data mining is • extraction of useful patterns from data sources, e.g., databases, texts, web, images, etc. • Patterns must be: • valid, novel, potentially useful, understandable

18. Data Mining (Cont.) • Computerization of businesses produce huge amount of data • How to make best use of data? • Knowledge discovered from data can be used for competitive advantage. • Online e-businesses generate even larger data sets • Online retailers (e.g., amazon.com) are largely driving by data mining. • Web search engines are information retrieval (text mining) and data mining companies

19. End of Introduction