1.

Introduction to DBMS
1.1

INTRODUCTION
DataBase Management System has evolved from a specialized computer application to a
central component of computing environment. Database system plays a vital role in
organizing data about a particular enterprise. Consider an example of a company which
stores data about following :
Employees (Employee No., Name, Address, Salary).
Departments (Department No., Name, Location)
Project (Name, Project No., Department No., Location)
Which may have following relations :
An Employee works in a Departments.
An Employee works on many Projects.
A Department handles many Project.
Therefore, a system is needed which can effectively organize the data and also use it to
analyze and guide operations of the company.
Nowadays, the amount of information to be stored is increasing tremendously and thus
the need of flexible and powerful system is also increasing daybyday which has the
ability not only to effectively organize or maintain large collection of data but also
provides easy access to data.

1.2

1.2.1

CONCEPT OF DBMS
This section covers basic definitions related to DBMS and also explain various
components of DBMS. Data Base Management System consists of two components :
(i)
Database i.e. collection of data
(ii)
System or set of programs which are used to access and manage the database.
By incorporating these two components, DBMS organize the information, maintain it and
retrieve it efficiently as and when required. So to use and understand the system, as well
maintained database and set of programs are needed.
Concept of Data and Database
The word Data is derived from a Latin word which means to give thus data are given
facts from which additional facts can be inferred. Data, are facts or undoubted
information used for different computations or calculations. For example the facts
related to an employee in a company like his Employee No., Name, Salary, Designation
etc. are data but when these data are retrieved or processed to find answers of questions
like :
What is Employee No.of employee whose salary is more than 10,000 ?
What is name of employee whose Employee No. is 24 ?
Then it becomes information. Thus information is a processed form of data and database
is a logicially coherent collection of data, not the information, with same meaning.
A database, is a collection of interrelated data which represents some aspects of real
world. Database has some inherent meaning and is related to a particular group of users
or applications. For example Database of a college, may contain data about students,
faculties, courses etc. which are related to each other with certain relations like faculty

1.2.2

1.3

teaches students, students are enrolled in courses etc. Thus, we can say that database
contains the data, related to a real world enterprise, and is designed, built and populated
with data for specific applications related to the enterprise.
Definition of DBMS
A database management system (DBMS) is essentially a collection of interrelated data
and a set of programs to access this data. This collection of data is usually called the
database. Database systems are designed to maintain large volumes of data. Management
of data involves :

Defining the structures for the storage of data.

Providing the mechanisms for the security of data against unauthorized access.
The primary objective of a DBMS is to provide an environment that is convenient
and efficient to use, in retrieving information from and storing information into the
database.
The user of the DBMS is provided the following facilities among others:

Adding empty files to the database.

Inserting new data into the existing files.

Retrieving data from the files.

Updating data in the files.

Deleting data from the files.

Removing existing files from the database.

Therefore, DBMS can be used for different purposes besides data storage which are as
follows :
(i)
Efficient access to data.
(ii)
For avoiding data redundancy and inconsistency.
(iii)
For providing security of data.
(iv)
For enforcing different integrity constraints.
(v)
For providing access for data to multiple users concurrently.

HISTORY OF DBMS
Most of the software applications focus on the manipulation of the data from the starting
days of computer. So, there is a need arises for a system that helps in storing and
manipulating the data. The first general purpose DBMS was designed by Charles
Bachman in early 1960s and called as Integrated Data Store. It founded the basis for the
network data model and influenced database system through 1960s. In 1966, IBM
released the first commercially available DBMS called IMS (Information Management
System) which based on the hierarchial data model and assumes all data relationship to
be structured as hierarchies. Conference On Data Systems Languages (CODASYL) set
standards for network database product in 1969.
Dr. E. F. Codd, an IBM researcher, proposed relational data model in theoritical paper in
1970. The publication of Codds paper in early seventies set off a flurry of activities in
both research and commercial system developments communites and they worked to
bring out a relational DBMS. IBM developed a relational model prototype in 1976. In
1980s, the relational model was developed as a standard approach for DBMS. SQL is
developed as a part of IBMs system R project which becomes a standard query
language. So IBM released first commercially available Database product based on

relational model SQL/DS for interactive operating system in 1981. IBM produced DB2
for its mairyraness with batch operating system in 1982. SQL was standardized and was
adopted as a query language by ANSI and ISO. Many developments were being done in
1980s and 1990s in the area of database system, which include the release of Paradox,
DBase, Foxpro and Access. Different researches worked out to develop a more powerful
and rich data model which can support complex data types.
Later on, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Management Resource Planning
(MRP) evolved. Both of these packeges identify a set of common tasks e.g. human
resource planning, inventory management etc. of a large organization and provide a
general application layer to carry out these tasks. Thenafter, DBMS get into the
revolutionary age of internet. Data stored in the DBMS can now be accessed with the
help of web browsers from any where and at any time. Stored data is being provided on
the web in the form of HTML and XML documents. So in 2000, the fashionable area for
innovation is XML database. XML databases aim to remove the traditional division
between documents and data, allowing an organizations information resource to be held
in one place, whether they are highly structured or not. All the database vendors try to
develop more advanced DBMS which can support complex data like video, streaming
data, digital libraries on the web. Thus, the database system evolved from sequential file
access to the object oriented database system used in present scenerio.

1.4

FILE SYSTEM V/S DBMS

Initially, a computer system used by an enterprise mainly performs data processing tasks
i.e. to insert the information about employees, retrieve information about employees of
particular department, accounting functions on salary of employees etc. Since these
systems performed normal record keeping functions, they were called data processing
system. Thus data processing system is an automated system for processing data of an
organization. The conventional data processing approach is to develop a program (or
many programs) for each application. This results in one or more data files for each
application (fig. 1.1). Some of the data may be common between files. However, one
application may require the file to be arranged on a particular field, e.g. amount. A major
drawback of conventional method is that the storage and access techniques are built into
the program. Therefore, though the same data may be required by two applications, the
data will have to be stored in to different places because each application depends on the
way that the data is stored.
There are various drawbacks of the conventional data file processing environment. Some
of them are listed below.
(i)
Data Redundancy
Some data elements like name, address, identification code, are used in various
applications. Since data is required by multiple applications, it is stored in multiple data
files. In most cases, there is a repetition of data files. This is referred to as data
redundancy, and it leads to various other problems.
(ii)
Data Integrity Problem
Data redundancy is one reason for problems of data integrity. Since, the same data is
stored in different places, it is inevitable that some inconsistency will creep in. For
example if an instructor of Microprocessor Technology begins to take course in
Computer Architecture this needs to be reflected in more than one place (figure 1.1). If
the change is not made in all the places, the university will have different information in
different places about the same instructor.
(iii)

Data Availability Constraints

When data is scattered in different files, the availability of information from combination
of files is constrained to some extent.

Figure 1.1 One to one correspondence between applications and data files
1.4.1

Advantage of DBMS over File System

File system stores data in the form of records and data which are files managed by
operating system and uses application program to extract information from the file.
A major advantage the database approach has over the conventional approach is that a
database system provides centralized control of data.
(i)
Reduced Redundancy
Unlike conventional approach each application does not have to maintain its own data
files. Data can be integrated and used by multiple applications at the same time.
(ii)
Ensure Consistency
It becomes very difficult to maintain consistent format of files in file system. Different
programmers can use different programming languages, which may cause duplication of
information in several files. This duplication results in higher storage and access cost. In
addition, it may lead to data inconsistency i.e. various copies of same information may
not agree. For example, consider an employee management system, if address of an
employee which is stored at two places and is updated at only one place then the system
will give conflicting information and become inconsistent. The DBMS can guarantee that
the database is never inconsistent, by providing a fix format of data and by ensuring that
a change made to any entry, automatically applies to the other entries as well. This
process is known as propagating updates.
(iii)

Data Manipulation Capabilities

File system requires an application program for processing the data stored in files
according to needs of user. If the user needs get changed then a different application
program is required. For example consider the employes management system. Suppose
we want to find name of employees in Jaipur then either new application program is
developed or we have to find out the name of employee having city as Jaipur manually in
the case of files system. This method is not an efficient process as developing a new
application program takes a lot of time and it is possible that after development of
program, our needs changes from finding employees in Jaipur to find employees in
Malviya Nagar, Jaipur. Database system can solve such problems by simply firing
queries to the database as needed and retreive answer in response.
(iv)
Data Independence (Reduced Programming Efforts)
In non-database systems, the requirements of the application dictate the way in which the
data is stored, and the access techniques. Besides, the knowledge of the organization of
the data and the access techniques are built into the logic and code of the application.
These systems are data dependent. Consider this example, suppose the university
(mentioned previously) has an application that processes the student file. For
performance reasons, the file is indexed on the roll number. The application would be
aware of the existing index, and the internal structure of the application would be built
around this knowledge. Now, consider that for some reason, the file is to be indexed on
the registration date. In this case, it is impossible to change the structure of the stored data
without affecting the application too. Such an application is a data dependent one. It is
desirable to have data independent applications. Suppose two application X and Y need
to access the same file. However, both application require a particular field to be stored in
different formats. Application X requires the field customer-balance to be stored in
decimal format, while application Y requires it be stored in binary format. This would
pose a problem in the old systems. In a DBMS, differences may exist in the way that data
is actually stored, and the way that it is seen and used by a given application. To conform
to the changing requirements of the enterprise, the DataBase Administrator (DBA) may
need to change the storage structure or access techniques. The DBA should be able to do
this without having to modify the existing applications. If applications are data
dependent, programmer effort, that could otherwise be available for the creation of new
applications, would be necessary to modify existing applications to match the changes
made.
(v)
Atomicity and Transaction Management
File system does not ensure completion of transaction and it may cause problem of data
inconsistency. For example, consider employee management system where company
wants to shift an employee from sales department to finance department. The procedure
for this transaction is to perform two operations, reduction in number of employees in
sales department and increament in the number of employee in finance department, but in
file system may combine of both operations can not be guaranteed as we can not make a
single unit of these two operations and if only one operation is performed and system
crashes then the database will become inconsistent. This problem can easily be solved by
database management system. It ensures completion of whole transaction which
combinses more than one operation or no operation will be performed on behalf of the
transaction. This property is called atomicity.
(vi)
Security
File system does not provide any security to the data stored, as there are no authentication
rights provided to user for the file. Complete file is at expose of user. The DBA has to
guarantee that only authorized persons have access to the database. The DBA defines the

security checks to be carried out. Different checks can be applied to different operation
on the same data. For instance, a person may have the access rights to query on a file, but
may not have the rights to delete or update that file. The DBMS allows such security
checks to be established for each piece of data in the database.
(vii)
Integrity
Inconsistency between two entries can lead to integrity problems. However, even if there
is no redundancy, the database can still be inconsistent. For example, a student may be
enrolled in 10 courses in a semester when the maximum number of courses, one can
enroll is 7. Another example could be that of a student enrolling in a course that is not
being offered that semester. Such problems can be avoided in a DBMS by establishing
certain integrity checks to be carried out whenever any update operation is done.

1.5

DISADVANTAGES OF DBMS
Inspite of many advantages, DBMS does not proves to be powerful or advantageous
system in certain scenarios due to following :
(i)
Overhead for providing security, integration of data, transaction management,
concurrency control etc.
(ii)
More investment is required for hardware and software.
(iii)
Special training is required to use DBMS.
(iv)
Its performance may not be adequate for certain specialized applications
(v)
Many applications may need to manipulate the data in ways not supported
by the query language.
So, it is quite advantageous to use file system in certain situations, which are :
(i)
Database and application are simple and not expected to change .
(ii)
Concurrent access is not required.
(iii)
Real time applications as time constraints are not easy to maintain with
DBMS.

1.6

DESCRIBING AND STORING DATA IN DBMS

DBMS is always concerned with some real world enterprise. Data stored in DBMS
describe real world entities and represent relationships between these entities. For
example, there are employees, departments and projects in a company and data in the
company database describe these entities, in terms of their attributes and relationship to
other entities. Data can be described through different data model and at different levels
of abstraction.

1.6.1

Data Abstraction
Data abstraction is one of the fundamental characteristic of any database management
system, which helps in making data more accurate and easy to use. Abstraction refers to
the act of representing essential features without including background details or
explanations. So, data abstraction refers to the act of representing data without giving
details that how data are stored or maintained. Data abstraction prevents irrelevant
information at a particular level. Complexity of data is hide through several levels of
abstraction so as to simplify user interaction with the system. Different levels of
abstraction are :
(i)
Physical Level or Internal Level
It is the lowest level of abstraction which specifies storage details that how data are
actually stored on disks or on tapes. It specifies in the manner in which records are stored

either as the collection of pages or as the collection of records. Complex low level data
structures are described in detail at this level. The design of data structure described at
this level is called physical schema. The data structure at this level may include B trees,.
B+ trees, hashing etc.
(ii)
Logical Level or Conceptual View
The next higher level of abstraction describes what data are stored in the database, and
what relationship exists among those data. There is only one conceptual schema per
database. This schema also contains the method of deriving the objects in the conceptual
view from the internal views. The description of data at this level is in a format
independent of its physical representation. It also includes features that specify the checks
to retain data consistency and integrity. The logical level of abstraction is used by
database administrators, who decide what information is to be kept in the database

Cust_ID
Loan_No
Amount_in_Dollars

TYPE = BYTE (4), OFFSET = 0

TYPE = BYTE (4), OFFSET = 4
TYPE = BYTE (7), OFFSET = 8

Customer_Loan
Cust_ID
: 101
Loan_No
: 1011
Amount_in_Dollars : 8755.00
CREATE TABLE Customer_Loan (
Cust_ID
NUMBER(4)
Loan_No
NUMBER(4)
Amount_in_Dollars NUMBER(7,2))

External

Conceptual
Internal

Figure 1.2 Level of Data Abstraction

(iii)
View Level
It is the highest level of abstraction which describes different views of the entire
database. These views are designed according to the requirements of user who wants to
access only a part of the database. A database may have several views, according to the
demand of individual user or the group of users. The data in these views are not exactly
stored in DBMS but they are computed using specification of view described by user. An
analogy to the concept of data types in programming language may clarify the distinction
among levels of abstraction. Most high-level programming languages support the notion
of a record type.
At physical level, a customer, account, employee record can be described as a block of
consecutive storage locations for example words or bytes. The language compiler hides
this level of details from the programmers. Similarly, the database system hides many of
the lowest level storage details from database programmers.

At logical level, each such record is described by a type definition and the
interrelationship among these record type is defined. Programmers using a programming
language work at this level of abstraction. Similarly, database administrators usually
work at this level of abstraction.
Finally, at the view level, computer users see a set of application programs that hide
details of the data type. Similarly, at the view level, several views of the database are
defined, and database users see these views. In addition to hiding details of the logical
level of the database, the views also provide a security mechanism to prevent users from
accessing parts of the database.
Diagram: Example of three levels

1.6.2

1.7

1.7.1

1.7.2

1.8

Figure 1.3 Database Abstraction

Instances and Schemas
The collection of information stored in the database at a particular moment is called an
instance of the database.The overall design of the database is called the database
schema. Schemas are changed infrequently. Database systems have several schemas,
partitioned according to the levels of abstraction. At the lowest level is the physical
schema, at the intermediate level is the logical schema and at the highest level is a
subschema. In general database system supports one physical schema, one logical
schema, and several subschemas.

DATA INDEPENDENCE
Three levels of abstraction, along with the mappings from internal to conceptual and from
conceptual to external, provides two distinct levels of data independence: Logical and
physical data independence.
Logical Data Independence
Indicates that conceptual/logical schema can be changed without affecting the existing
external(view) schemas. The change would be absorbed by the mapping between the
external and conceptual(logical) levels. Consider a change in the conceptual view such as
merging two records into one or adding fields to an existing record. This would require a
change in the mapping from the external view to the conceptual view so as to leave the
external view unchanged. Some changes such as the deletion of a conceptual view field
or record, may require changes in the external view and application program.
Physical Data Independence
Indicates that the physical storage structures or devices used for storing the data could be
changed without necessitating a change in the conceptual view or any of the external
views. The change would be absorbed by the mapping between the conceptual and
internal levels. Modifications at physical level are occasionally to improve performance

DATABASE LANGUAGES
Most of the database management systems provide specialized languages called database
languages, to interact with database or to get some job done from the database.
Commands of these languages provides facility to the user to operate and manage the
database efficiently. Importance of database to the user is dependent on the ease with
which information can be obtained from it and one of the biggest reason of popularity of
relational database management system is that it allows a rich class of questions to ask

from the database in an easy manner. Consider our sample Employee database, a user
may ask :
(i)
Who is getting highest salary ?
(ii).
How many employees are working under Mr. Ramesh ?
(iii)
In which department employees strength is highest ?
Such questions which involve the data stored in a database are called queries and
database management systems provides a specialized language called query language to
ask queries from database.
A DBMS provides facility of data manipulation like retrieval of data, insertion of data,
modification of existing data and deletion of data etc. Such facilities are given by Data
Manipulation Language (DML) commands. Query language is only one part of DML.
DBMS also supports some commands that can make changes in the structure of the
database i.e. schema, such commands are known as Data Definition Language (DDL)
commands. The DML and DDL are collectively known as data sublanguages, when
embedded within a host language. DDL make changes in meta data (data about data)
stored in data dictionary and DML retrieve data from a database (query) or make changes
in an instance of the database.
Relational model supports a powerful mathematical logic based language, called
relational calculus which is a nonprocedural language for defining query solutions.
Queries in this language have precise meaning.
There are two types of relational calculus.
(i)
Tuple Relational Calculus
(ii)
Domain Relational Calculus
Relation algebra is another formal, procedural query language, based on a collection of
operators for manipulating relations.

1.9

TRANSACTION MANAGEMENT:
A transaction is a sequence of one or more SQL statements that together forms a logical
unit of work. Each statement in the transaction performs a part of the task, but all of them
are required to complete the task. All the statements forming a transaction must be
executed for the database to be in a consistent state. A transaction occurs when the
database is modified. Here is an example of a typical transaction. A customer orders a
product. The order processing program will:
(i)
Query the table containing product details to see if the product is in stock.
(ii)
Insert the order details into a table that holds the order details.
(iii)
Update the table containing product details to reduce the quantity on hand by the
quantity order.
These three actions, in the sequence shown above, form a single logical transaction. The
concept of transaction processing is critical for programs that update a database because
it ensures the integrity of the database.
As a rule, the statements in a transaction are executed as a single unit of work in the
database. Either all the statement will be executed successfully, or none of the statements
will be executed.
The DBMS is responsible for ensuring the consistent state of the database even in the
case of the application program aborting in the middle of the transaction, or a hardware
failure in the middle of a transaction. Consider the above example of a transaction. What

do you suppose will happen if the order processing program aborted after step(ii). The
database would reflect a partial transaction. It would be in an inconsistent state. To
maintain consistency, the DBMS undoes all the changes made if a transaction is not
completed. Thus, a DBMS guarantees that if a transaction executes some updates, and
then for whatever reasons, a failure occurs before the transaction reaches its normal
termination, then those updates will be undone.
To ensure integrity of the data, we require that the database system maintains the
following properties of the transactions:
(i)
Atomicity
Either operations of the transactions are reflected properly in the database or none are.
The basic idea behind ensuring atomicity is as follows. The database system keeps track
of the old values of any data on which a transaction performs a write, and, if the
transaction does not complete its execution the old values are restored to make it appear
as though the transaction never executed. It is handled by a component called the
Transaction Manager.
(ii)
Consistency
If the database is consistent before an execution of the transaction, the database remains
consistent after the execution of the transaction. Execution of a transaction in isolation
preserves the consistency of the database. Ensuring consistency for an individual
transaction is the responsibility of the application programmer who codes the transaction.
(iii)
Durability
The durability property guarantees that, once a transaction completes successfully, all the
updates that it carried out on the database persist, even if there is a system failure after the
transaction completes execution. We can guarantee durability by ensuring that either
(a)
The updates carried out by the transaction have been written to disk before the
transaction completes
(b)
Information about the updates carried out by the transaction and written to disk is
sufficient to enable the database to reconstruct the updates when the database
system is restarted after the failure. Ensuring durability is the responsibility of a
component of the database system called the Recovery Manager.
(iv)
Isolation
Even if the consistency and atomicity properties are ensured for each transaction, if
several transactions are executed concurrently, their operations may interleave in some
undesirable way, resulting in an inconsistent state. The isolation property of a transaction
ensures that the concurrent execution of transaction results in a system state that is
equivalent to a state that could have been obtained had these transactions executed one at
a time in some order.

1.10

STORAGE MANAGEMENT
Main memory of a computer can not be used to store a medium size database which may
be in gigabytes or even in terabytes therefore data are stored in disks and moved between
disk and main memory. Database management system should structure the data in such a
way that movement of data between main memory and disk may be reduced up to the
lowest level possible. Minimizing data movement will improve data access speed because
data movement to and from the disk is slow relative to the speed of central processing
unit.

The goal of database management system is to simplify and facilitate access to data. The
information that how the data are stored on physical media is hidden from the user. The
performance of system regarding data access speed can be measured in terms of response
time i.e. time elapsed between submission of command and data to the system and getting
the result of computation. Response time depends on the efficiency of the data structures
used to represent these data in the database and on how efficiently the system is able to
operate on these data structures. The storage manager component of database
management system is responsible for storing, retrieving and updating data in the
database. It provides an interface between the lowlevel data stored in the database and
the application programs and queries submitted to the system, it also translates the
various DML statements into lowlevel file system commands.

1.11

DATABASE USERS

Different people can use the database in a different manner. The interaction between user
and the database may be of several types according to the user. We can have four types of
users differentiated by the way they expect to interact with the DBMS :
1.11.1 Database Administrator
Databases of an enterprise are typically important enough and complex enough that the
task of designing and maintaining it requires a professional, called the DataBase
Administrator (DBA). DBA has central control over the system. The database
administrator is responsible for following functions :
(i)
Schema Design and Maintenance
The DBA creates the database schema after interacting with the users of the system
and analyzing what data are to be stored in the database. He or she writes a set of
definitions that are translated by DDL compiler into a set of tables and are stored the in
data dictionary.
(ii)
Physical Schema and Organisation Modification
DBA is responsible for designing physical schema and deciding how the data will be
stored on the physical media. DBA defines storage structure and access methods by
writing a set of definitions.
(iii)
Authorization and Security
DBA is responsible for ensuring that unauthorized data access is not permitted. The
DBA also decides which parts of the database, various users can access and in which
mode (read, write or both). Database administrator grants different types of
authorizations to different users. For example a clerk may be authorized to view salaries
of different employees but he may not be authorized to update salaries. This authority can
be given to the accounts officer only. So different access rights are given to different
usess according to requirement.
(iv)
Integrity Constraint Specification
Data stored in the database must satisfy certain constraints for example in an employee
database, Employee No. must be unique for each employee and Address value must not
be left blank. These constraints are called integrity constraints and it is the responsibility
of DBA to identify all such constraints and apply them to the database.
(v)
Recovery From Failure
The DBA is responsible for taking necessary steps required for restoring the database if
the system fails DBA should keep backups of the database time to time and maintains
logs of system activities so that recovery may become possible.

(vi)
Database Upgradation
DBA always tries to know, understand and analyze, changing requirements of user and
make upgradations in the database accordingly.
1.11.2 Application Programmers
They are computer professionals and write application programs. They embedded DML
call in the host language program. These DML calls are converted in the host language
normal procedure call by DML precompiler. The resulting program is then run through
the host language compiler, which generates appropriate object code.
1.11.3 Sophisticated Users
They work like an analyst and submit queries to a giving process or directly to the
DBMS, which breaks down the query into instructions that the storage manager
understands.
1.11.4 Specialized Users
Speciallized users write specialized database applications like computer aided design
systems, knowledgebase and expert systems etc. Such systems are different from
traditional data processing framework and uses complex data types.
1.11.5 Naive Users
They use the DBMS only by interacting through application programs written previously.
For example the clerk at ticket booking window, he uses an application program to do his
job of making reservations for a passenger.

1.12

DATABASE STRUCTURE

A database system is divided in different components. The exact architecture of a DBMS

depends on the operating system on which it has to work because the operating system
will provide the basic services, which database system uses base for accomplishing its
tasks.
Database system can be divided in to two broad parts.
(i)
Query Processor Components
(ii)
Storage Manager Components
1.12.1 Query Processor Components
These components are used in evaluating DDL and DML queries and includes following
components.
(i)
DML Compiler
It first attempts to transform users request into an equivalent but more efficient form and
then translates that into a set of low level instructions that can be used by query
evaluation engine.
(ii)
Embedded DML PreCompiler
It converts DML statements embedded in an application program to normal procedure
calls in host language. This pre compiler consults DML complier to generate the
appropriate code
(iii)
DDL Interpreter
It makes data dictionary, which contains metadata.
(iv)
Query Evaluation Engine
It executes low level instructions generated by the DML complier.

1.12.2 Storage Manager Components

It provides the interface between the low level data stored in the database and the
application programs and queries submitted to the system. These components include :
(i)
File Manager
It manages disk space allocation and the data structures used to store the data
(ii)
Buffer Manager
It is responsible for fetching data from disk to main memory and decides the caching
strategy suitable for the application.
(iii)
Transaction Manager
It ensures consistency of the database after any transaction performed on it.
(iv)

Authorization and Integrity Manager

It tests for satisfaction of integrity constraints and checks authority of users to access
data. It uses all the integrity constraints and authorization rules specified by the DBA.
1.12.3 Data Structures Used by DBMS
A DBMS can use several kind of data structures as a part of physical system
implementation. Each structure has its own importance. Following are some common
data structures.
(i)

Data Files

It stores the database itself on the disk.

(ii)

Data Dictionary

Information pertaining to the structure and usage of data contained in the database, the
metadata, is maintained in a data dictionary. The data dictionary is a database itself,
documents the data. Each database user can consult the data dictionary to learn what each
piece of data and the various synonyms of the data fields mean. In a system where the
data dictionary is part of the DBMS(Integrated system) the data dictionary stores
information concerning the source of each data-field value, the frequency of its use, and
an audit trail concerning updates, including the who and when of each update.
Currently data dictionary systems are available as add-ons to the DBMS.
The data dictionary stores:

Names of relations

Names of the attributes of each relation

Domains and lengths of attributes

Names of views defined on the database, and definitions of those views

Names of authorized users

Accounting information about users

Number of tuples in each relation

Method of storage used for each relation

Name of the index

Name of the relation being indexed

Attributes on which the index is defined

Type of index formed

(iii)
Indices
These are used to provide fast access to data items that hold particular values.
(iv)
Statistical Data
It stores statistical information about the data stored in the database, like number of
records, blocks etc. in a table. This information can be used to execute a query efficiently.

Figure 1.4 Diagram of Database Structure

SUMMARY

Data are raw facts or figures.

Database is a collection of interrelated, shared, and controlled data, typically describing
activities and functions of an organization.
DataBase Management System is a software designed to manage all the operations of a
database like insertion, modification, deletion, sorting of data and creation, alteration,
removal of database structure etc.
Data model is a conceptual method of structuring data.
Data in the database is abstracted in three levels physical, logical and view level.
Schema is the overall design of the database.

Instance is the snapshot of the database or the data stored in the database at a particular
point of time.
Logical data independence means no need of changes in the logical structure of data
when there are changes at view level.
Physical data independence means no need of changes in the physical storage details
when there are changes at logical level.
Data manipulation language (DML) is used to retrieve and manipulate data.
Data definition language (DDL) is used to specify database schema.
Transaction is a program unit or set of operations that represents a logical unit of tasks.
Atomicity, consistency, isolation and durability are four properties that all the
transactions should hold. These properties are known as ACID properties.
Atomicity ensures that all actions associated with a transaction are executed to
completion, or none is performed.
Transaction must not leave the database in inconsistent state.
Concurrent transactions must be executed in serializable manner. Isolation property of
transaction ensures it.
Durability ensures persistence of successfully completed transactions.
Storage manager is a program module that provides the interface between the low level
data stored in the database and the application programs and queries submitted to the
system.
Transaction manager ensures consistency of the database even after system failure.
Database administrator is a manager whose responsibilities are focused on technical
aspects of the system.
Query processor components and storage manager components are two broad parts of
database system.
Query processor components are used in evaluating DDL and DML queries.
Storage manager components provide the interface between low level data stored in
database and application program and queries submitted to the system.

REVIEW QUESTIONS
Q.1
Q.2

Q.3
Q.4
Q.5
Q.6

Why would you choose a database system instead of simply storing data in operating
system files ? When would it make sense not to use database system ?
Explain the differences between internal, external and conceptual schemas. How are
these different schema layers related to the concept of logical and physical data
independence ?
Explain the role of different users of database ?
What is a transaction ? Explain ACID properties of transaction ?
What are log files ? How they are helpful in recovery.
Explain roles of following for representing information about real world in database ?
(a)
Data Definition Language
(b)
Data Manipulation Language
(c)
Buffer Manager
(d)
Data Model

Q.7
Q.8
Q.9
Q.10
Q.11
Q.12
Q.13
Q.14
Q.15

Q.16

Explain different database languages available.

Explain transaction management in DBMS in detail.
Discuss layered structure of DBMS.
Describe main characteristics of the database approach and contrast it with file based
approach.
[Main/Back Exam 2004]
Describe components of DBMS environment and discuss how they are related to each
other.
[Main/Back Exam 2004]
What is DBMS ? How are data stored in DBMS ? Explain.
[Main/Back Exam 2003]
What is transaction ? How is transaction managed in DBMS ?
[Main/Back Exam 2003]
What are the advantages and disadvantages of using database system ?
What is the difference between logical data independence and physical data
independence ? Which is easier to accomplish ? and Why ?
[Main/Back Exam 2002]
Give overall system structure of DBMS and explain function of each component.
[1995]