An Introduction to Database Systems

An Introduction to Database Systems provides a comprehensive introduction to the now very large field of database systems by providing a solid grounding in the foundations of database technology while shedding some light on how the field is likely to develop in the future. This edition has been rewritten and expanded to stay current with database system trends.

(All chapters begin with an Introduction end with a Summary, Exercises, and Reference and Bibliography)

I. PRELIMINARIES.

1. An Overview of Database Management.
What is a database system.
What is a database.
Why database.
Data independence.
Relational systems and others.

2. Database System Architecture.
The three levels of the architecture.
The external level.
The conceptual level.
The internal level.
Mappings.
The database administrator.
The database management system.
Data communications.
Client/server architecture.
Utilities.
Distributed processing.

3. An Introduction to Relational Databases.
An informal look at the relational model.
Relations and relvars.
What relations mean.
Optimization.
The catalog.
Base relvars and views.
Transactions.
The suppliers-and-parts database.

4. An Introduction to SQL.
Overview.
The catalog.
Views.
Transactions.
Embedded SQL.
Dynamic SQL and SQL/CLI.
SQL is not perfect.

II. THE RELATIONAL MODEL.

5. Types.
Values v Variables.
Types v Representations.
Type Definition.
Operators.
Type generators.
SQL facilities.

6. Relations.
Tuples.
Relation types.
Relation values.
Relation variables.
SQL facilities.

7. Relational Algebra.
Closure revisited.
The original algebra: Syntax.
The original algebra: Semantics.
Examples.
What is the algebra for.
Further points.
Additional operators.
Grouping and ungrouping.

8. Relational Calculus.
Tuple calculus.
Examples.
Calculus vs. algebra.
Computational capabilities.
SQL facilities.
Domain calculus.
Query-by-example.

9. Integrity.
A closer look.
Predicates and propositions.
Relvar predicates and database predicates.
Checking the constraints.
Internal v external constraints.
Correctness v consistency.
Integrity and views.
A constraint classification scheme.
Keys.
Triggers (a digression).
SQL facilities.

10. Views.
What are views for.
View retrievals.
View updates.
Snapshots (a digression).
SQL facilities.

III. DATABASE DESIGN.

11. Functional Dependencies.
Basic definitions.
Trivial and nontrivial dependencies.
Closure of a set of dependencies.
Closure of a set of attributes.
Irreducible sets of dependencies.

12. Further Normalization I: 1nf, 2nf, 3nf, Bcnf.
Nonloss decomposition and functional dependencies.
First, second, and third normal forms.
Dependency preservation.
Boyce/Codd normal form.
A note on relation-valued attributes.

13. Further Normalization II: Higher Normal Forms.
Multi-valued dependencies and fourth normal form.
Join dependencies and fifth normal form.
The normalization procedure summarized.
A note on denormalization.
Orthogonal design (a digression).
Other normal forms.

14. Semantic Modeling.
The overall approach.
The E/R model.
E/R diagrams.
Database design with the E/R model.
A brief analysis.

IV. TRANSACTION MANAGEMENT.

15. Recovery.
Transactions.
Transaction recovery.
System recovery.
Media recovery.
Two-phase commit.
Savepoints (a disgression).
SQL facilities.

16. Concurrency.
Three concurrency problems.
Locking.
The three concurrency problems revisited.
Deadlock.
Serializability.
Recover revisited.
Isolation levels.
Intent locking.
ACID properties.
SQL facilities.

V. FURTHER TOPICS.

17. Security.
Discretionary access control.
Mandatory access control.
Statistical databases.
Data encryption.
SQL facilities.

18. Optimization.
A motivating example.
An overview of query processing.
Expression transformation.
Database statistics.
A divide-and-conquer strategy.
Implementing the relational operators.

19. Missing Information.
An overview of the 3VL approach.
Some consequences of the foregoing scheme.
Nulls and keys.
Outer join (a digression).
Special values.
SQL facilities.

20. Type Inheritance.
Type hierarchies.
Polymorphism and substitutability.
Variables and assignments.
Specialization by constraint.
Comparisons.
Operators, versions, and signatures.
Is a circle an ellipse.
Specialization by constraint revisited.
SQL facilities.

21. Distributed Databases.
Some preliminaries.
The twelve objectives.
Problems of distributed systems.
Client/server systems.
DBMS independence.
SQL facilities.

22. Decision Support.
Aspects of decision support.
Database design for decision support.
Data preparation.
Data warehouses and data marts.
Online analytical processing.
Data mining.
SQL facilities.

23. Temporal Databases.
What is the problem.
Intervals.
Packing and unpacking relations.
Generalizing the relational operators.
Database Design.
Integrity constraints.

24. Logic-Based Databases.
Overview.
Propositional calculus.
Predicate calculus.
A proof-theoretic view of databases.
Deductive database systems.
Recursive query processing.

VI. OBJECTS, RELATIONS, AND XML.

25. Object Databases.
Objects, classes, methods, and messages.
A closer look.
A cradle-to-grave example.
Miscellaneous issues.

26. Object / Relational Databases.
The First Great Blunder.
The Second Great Blunder.
Implementation issues.
Benefits of true rapprochement.
SQL facilities.

27. The World Wide Web and XML.
An overview of XML.
XML and databases.
XML data definition.
XML data manipulation.
SQL facilities.

APPENDIXES.

Appendix A: The TransRelational™ Model.
Three levels of abstraction.
The basic idea.
Condensed columns.
Merged columns.
Implementing the relational operators.

Appendix B: Abbreviations, Acronyms, and Symbol.
Index.

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