CIS209/IS52003A DATABASE SYSTEMS

General Scope of Course

This course aims to provide the students with an understanding of the main issues related to data modelling storage and manipulation as employed in database systems. In particular, the course is aimed at the detailed presentation of the theory and practice of the relational model, and at the introduction of recent and emerging trends in database systems.

The main topics covered by the course include: motivation for the need for database systems; general components of a database environment; main components and features of a database system; overview of the relational model, as the underlying framework of most of the industrial database management systems; the relational database language SQL; methodology for database design; extended entity-relationship (EER) modelling in UML; transformation of EER models into a relational models; normal forms and issues related to normal forms (e.g. update anomalies, functional dependencies and dependency preservation); transactions analysis; file organisation structures and indexes; views; security; monitoring and tuning a database system, transaction management; concurrency control; database systems and web technologies; pointers to emerging trends (e.g., distributed database systems, OO database systems, logic databases and knowledge based systems and semi-structured data).

Learning outcomes

On completion of this course you should be able to:

• discuss main issues related to database systems in general and to the position of a database system in the context of an information system;
• use SQL to define and maintain a database;
• to model a set of requirements using the extended entity relationship model (EER) and transform an EER model into a relational model;
• discuss issues related to normalisation and normalise relational models at least up to BCNF;
• discuss issues related to physical design and carry out tasks related to physical design (e.g., transaction analysis and indexing);
• carry out all stages related to database development for simple applications;
• discuss issues related to database connectivity and transaction management and develop simple interfaces to databases (e.g., web based interfaces);
• discuss issues related to some of the emerging trends (e.g., distributed database systems).