Databases and the Web

An Introduction

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 Why is ‘Databases on the
Web’ Important?
 Databases are established technology
for managing large amounts of data
 The Web is a good way to present
information
 Separating data management from
presentation improves efficiency
 updating
 finding information

8A-2 Credit: Netskills

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 Examples of Websites
Using Databases
 Organizational information services
 employee directories
 Booking & scheduling
 airlines, university courses signup
 Electronic commerce
 Website automation
 www.yahoo.com
 www.webmonkey.com
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 How to Integrate Databases
and the Web?
 Databases
 Integration tools

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 Databases
 Database
 an organized collection of data
– paper-based
 DBMS (database management system)
– software to enable user to create and maintain databases

 Relational database
 organizes data into tables
 RDBMS

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 Examples of RDBMS

 MS Access
 desktop
 MySQL, mSQL
 mid-range
 Oracle, Sybase, MS SQL Server
 large enterprise

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 How to Integrate Databases
and the Web?
 Databases
 MS Access
 MySQL, mSQL
 Oracle, Sybase, MS SQL Server
 Integration tools
 PHP or CGI, Servlets, JSP, ASP etc.
 “Middleware”: e.g. ColdFusion
http://www.allaire.com/

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 Application Interface to
Databases
 CGI CGI
 Perl DBI DBI
 Perl DBD (DBD::mysql)
DBD::mysql DBD::oracle
 ASP
 ODBC (Open DataBase Connectivity)
– A standard for the MS world
 ODBC driver comes with database
– MySQL supplies MyODBC

 Servlets/JSP — JDBC
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 Relational Databases
 Databases that organize data into tables
 Each table has
– A name
(For identification)
– One or more columns
(For attributes or fields)
– Rows
(For entries or records)

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 Relational Database Design

 Logical database design

 Physical database design

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 Logical Database Design
(Entity-relationship modeling)
 Identify and model the entities
 Identify and model the relationships
between the entities
 Identify and model the attributes
 Create unique identifier for each entity
 Normalize

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 Terminology

Term Definition
Entity A thing (person, place, event, etc.) which exists
outside of the database and is represented in it
Attribute Describes the properties of a particular entity

Relationship Describes the associations between two or more

entities

Normalization Prevents inefficiency by ensuring no duplicated data

in multiple tables

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 Physical Database Design

 Entities become tables

 Attributes become columns
choose appropriate data type for each
column
 Unique identifiers become primary keys
 Relationships are modeled as foreign keys
Foreign keys can be primary keys from other
tables

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 Structured Query Language (SQL)
Standard language for working with relational
databases
 A type of ‘natural’ language
 You may not have to write any code
 There are tools for that e.g Access query tool
 But necessary to understand basics, as
SQL is common to all nearly all the tools
covered today

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 Two Categories of SQL Statement
1. Data manipulation
• SELECT, INSERT, DELETE
2. Data definition
• CREATE DATABASE, DROP DATABASE
• CREATE TABLE, DROP TABLE

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 SQL Statement: INSERT
INSERT INTO table
(col1, col2, col3, ...)
VALUES (‘text1’,’text2’...,num1,..);

mysql> INSERT INTO employee

-> (firstname, lastname, address,em_id)
-> VALUES(‘John’,’Doe’,’Somewhere’,1);

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 SQL Statement: DELETE
DELETE FROM table
WHERE condition;

mysql> DELETE FROM employee

-> WHERE lastname=‘Jones’;

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 SQL Statement: SELECT
SELECT column_list
FROM table
WHERE condition;

mysql> SELECT * from course;

mysql> SELECT description

-> FROM course
-> WHERE title LIKE ‘Using%’;

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 Use SELECT to join tables
SELECT table1.colx, table2.coly...
FROM table1, table2
WHERE condition;

mysql> SELECT course.title, course.description,

-> teacher.name
-> FROM course, teacher
-> WHERE course.teacher_ID=teacher.teacher_ID;

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 Reference

Programming the Perl DBI

http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/perldbi/chapter/ch04.html

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 The End

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 Aside: Middleware
Adapted from Introduction to Distributed Systems: Slides for
CSCI 3171 Lectures by E. W. Grundke

References:
 [TvS] A. Tanenbaum and M. van Steen
Distributed Systems: Principles and Paradigms, Prentice-Hall (2002)
<URL:http://www.prenhall.com/divisions/esm/app/author_tanenbaum/custom/dist_sys_1e/>

 [CDK] G. Coulouris, J. Dollimore and T. Kindberg

Distributed System: Concepts and Design, Addison-Wesley (2001)
<URL:http://www.cdk3.net/ig/beida/index.html>

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 Layered Protocols: IP
Layers, interfaces, and protocols in the Internet model.

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 Layered Protocols: OSI
Layers, interfaces, and protocols in the OSI model.

2-1

TvS 2.2

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 Middleware Protocols

2-5

An adapted reference model for networked

communication.
TvS 2.6

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 Middleware
A software layer that
 masks the heterogeneity of systems
 provides a convenient programming abstraction
 provides protocols for providing general-purpose
services to more specific applications, e.g.
 authentication protocols
 authorization protocols
 distributed commit protocols
 distributed locking protocols
 high-level communication protocols
– remote procedure calls (RPC)
– remote method invocation (RMI)

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 Middleware
General structure of a distributed system as middleware.

1-22

TvS 1.24

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 Middleware and Openness

1.23

In an open middleware-based distributed system, the protocols

used by each middleware layer should be the same, as well as
the interfaces they offer to applications.
TvS 1.25

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Middleware programming models
Remote Calls
 remote Procedure Calls (RPC)
 distributed objects and Remote Method Invocation (RMI)
 e.g. Java RMI

Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA)

 cross-language RMI

Other programming models

 remote event notification
 remote SQL access
 distributed transaction processing
CDK Ch 1 End of Aside
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