Fundamentals of Relational Database Management Systems / Studies in Computational Intelligence Bd.47 (PDF)

1 Overview of Database Management System (P. 1)

Learning Objectives. This chapter provides an overview of database management system which includes concepts related to data, database, and database management system. After completing this chapter the reader should be familiar with the following concepts:

– Data, information, database, database management system
– Need and evolution of DBMS
– File management vs. database management system
– ANSI/SPARK data model
– Database architecture: two-, three-, and multitier architecture

1.1 Introduction

Science, business, education, economy, law, culture, all areas of human development "work" with the constant aid of data. Databases play a crucial role within science research: the body of scientific and technical data and information in the public domain is massive and factual data are fundamental to the progress of science.

But the progress of science is not the only process affected by the way people use databases. Stock exchange data are absolutely necessary to any analyst, access to comprehensive databases of large scale is an everyday activity of a teacher, an educator, an academic or a lawyer.

There are databases collecting all sorts of different data: nuclear structure and radioactive decay data for isotopes (the Evaluated Nuclear Structure Data File) and genes sequences (the Human Genome Database), prisoners’ DNA data ("DNA o.ender database"), names of people accused for drug o.enses, telephone numbers, legal materials and many others.

In this chapter, the basic idea about database management system, its evolution, its advantage over conventional file system, database system structure is discussed.

1.2 Data and Information

Data are raw facts that constitute building block of information. Data are the heart of the DBMS. It is to be noted that all the data will