Course Objectives and Overview

Grading: Letter; assignments 50%, midterm/final 50%

This course focuses on the design of a database starting from the conceptual design to the implementation of  a database schema and user interfaces to the database. Students will learn about database design concepts, data models (Entity-Relationship and Relational Model), the database query language SQL and components of a database management system. Further topics include query processing and optimization techniques, transaction management, and storage and file structures.

The course is heavily design oriented. In most of the projects, students have to design and implement a database using a commercial database management system and associated development tools. Students will in particular learn the database query language SQL and the development of applications using PL/SQL. The database system used in this course is Oracle 10g (SQL, PL/SQL).

Syllabus (tentative):

1. Overview of Database Systems

Purpose of a database system, data models, database languages, architecture
 
2. Entity-Relationship Model

Design issues, Entity-Relationship diagrams, mapping to tables
 
3. Relational Model

Structure of the model, relational algebra
 
4. SQL

Basic structure, simple & complex select statements, nested subqueries, aggregate and set functions
 
5. Database Design

Relational database design concepts, decomposition and normalization, integrity constraints
 
6. Storage and File Structures

File organization, organization of records in a file, storage access, Indexing, B⁺ tree index files
 
7. Query Processing

Query cost and cost estimation, selection, sorting and joins
 
8. Transaction Management

Transaction concepts, concurrent execution, serializability, recovery
 
9. System Architecture

System components, types of systems, Oracle system architecture
 
10. Commercial Database Systems

Oracle, DB2, Informix

See also: Department of Computer Science - General Course Description