DATABASE Basic Concepts

Q1) Review the three schema model. In a database of student records, what might each
schema consist of?

Three Schema model

1. Internal Schema

The internal schema is the view about the actual physical storage of the data. It tells us
what data is stored in the database & how. It describes the storage allocation, access paths
like primary key at this level. In a student records database, the internal schema would be
how the tables are created & stored, structure of the tables, primary keys & secondary
keys, what techniques used in data compression & encryption.

2. Conceptual Schema

The conceptual schema is the information model of the enterprise & contains the view of
the whole database. It includes definitions of each of the various types of data. In Student
records database, the data types used to represent entities, entity types (name field,
address field), relationships among them, user operations (add, delete, update) &
constraints can be considered as conceptual view.

3. External Schema

The external schema is the view that individual user of the database has. Different
viewers has different aspects, thus the same database may provide different views. In
Student records database, student number, name, address etc can be the external view of
the database.

Q2) Suppose you’ve written a program to read in a set of points from a picture. How
many co-ordinates does each point have?

It has two co-ordinates for each point as X & Y & can store the color values with this X
& Y.

Now want to use the program to read points from a 3D model. How many co-ordinates
does each point have?

Then it has three co-ordinates for each point.

What happens to your program code & how would program data independence help
you to make it work?

As the co-ordinates are to be changed, no need of changing the database structure.

Because the co-ordinates represent the program data. Therefore whether it is a 2D picture
or a 3D picture, the database remains same while the program code changes according to
the requirement. There the program data independence is very important as the
separation makes it to work independently & do the certain changes & run the program
as before.

Why is the concept of “independence” so important?

Program data independence allows changing the data storage structures & operations
without having to change the DBMS. In the data dependant approach, it is very difficult
to modify the data & also makes the data inaccessible for other programs. Because when
the program & data are not independent, when a change needs to be done in the data,
almost all the structure of the DBMS needs to be changed. Therefore it will be a highly
inefficient process in programming environment. Therefore independence of data is very
important to have a flexible database environment to modify, program data without
affecting to the program.

Q3) What is the difference between procedural & non-procedural DMLs?

Non-procedural DML

Allows the user to specify what data is required without specifying how it is to be
obtained. It also called as high level DML. The end users use this DML to specify their
requests to DBMS to retrieve data. The DBMS translates a DML statement into a
procedure that manipulates the records. Example of a non-procedural DML is SQL.

Procedural DML

It is also known as low level DML. It is used to get data or objects from the database. It
retrieves records & processes each operation separately. In this language the looping,
branching etc. statements are used to retrieve & process each record. Programmers use
this low level DML.
Q4) Discuss the different types of user friendly interfaces & the types of users who
typically use it?

1. Interfaces for the DBA

Most database systems contain privileged commands that can be used only by the DBA’s
staff. These includes commands for creating accounts, setting system parameters,
granting account authorization, changing a schema & re-organizing the storage structure
of a database.

2. Menu-Based Interfaces for Web Clients or Browsing

These interfaces present the user with lists of options called menus that lead the user
through the formulation of a request. By using these menus, users do not want to
memorize the specific commands & syntax of a query language. Pull down menus are a
very popular technique used in web based user interfaces. They also called browsing
interfaces which allow a user to look through the contents of a database in an exploratory
& unstructured manner.

3. Natural Language Interfaces (NLI)

These interfaces accept requests written in English like languages & try to understand
them. It has its own schema, which is similar to the database conceptual schema or a
dictionary. The NLI refers to the words in its schema as well as to the set of words in its
dictionary to interpret the request. Then the interface generates a high level query
corresponding to the NLI request.

4. Forms-Based Interfaces

Forms-based interface displays a form to the user. Users can fill either all the data fields
or some of them as per the requirements. Forms are usually designed & programmed for
naïve users as interfaces to canned transactions. DBMSs have forms specification
languages, which are special languages to help programmers specify such forms.

5. Graphical User Interfaces (GUI)

A graphical User Interface or GUI displays a schema to the user in diagrammatic form.
User can specify a query by manipulating the diagram. GUIs utilize both menus & forms.
Most GUIs use a pointing device to pick the parts & place them.
 6. Interface for Parametric Users

Parametric users usually have small set of operations to be performed repeatedly. So

system analysts & programmers design & implement a special interface for each known
class of naïve users. The commands are limited so that number of keystrokes to be
pressed will be reduced. These are used by bank tellers.

Q5) With what other computer system software does a DBMS interact?

1. Data dictionary systems

2. CASE tools
3. Information repository systems
4. Application development environments
5. Communication software

Q6) What is the difference between two tier & three tier client-server architecture.

Two Tier Client-Server Architecture

In this architecture, there is an application running in the client machine which interacts
the server or the DBMS. Typically the client application contained some or all of the
presentation logic, the application navigation, the business rules & the database access.
Every time the business rules were modified, the client application has to be changed,
tested & redistributed, even when the user interface remained intact. In this approach, the
client/server interaction is more tightly coupled & is done internally by the DBMS
modules. This division differs from system to system. In such cases, the server is called a
data server. Another thing in two-tier architecture is to prototype an application in a
small, two-tier environment, & then scale up by simply adding more users to the server.
So the improper scaling is a major issue in this approach. The simplicity of the design
made it more easy to use & build.

Three Tier Client-Server Architecture

In three tier architecture there are three tiers implemented & each will have different set
of responsibilities. In this approach, the data & applications are split onto separate
servers; with the server-side distributed between a database server & application server.
The client is the front end, simply requesting & displaying data. The business logic &
data access is handled by the middle tier. Middle tier will handle the data from the
presentation layer & also from the server. So it is easier to modify or replace any tier
without affecting to other tiers. The load balancing is handled carefully as the application
& database functionality are separated. Security policies can be added to server tiers
without affecting to the client side.