Position in Curriculum

In the curriculum up to term 2004-2005 this course in a mandatory course in cum laude m odule for major Compuer Science students. It is elective for Computer Science minors. It counts for 2 old credit units (4 new units). In the new curriculum it is an elective course in the subject studies module.

Goals

In this course students learn how to use files efficiently, how database operations are implemented, how queries are executed in a relational database environment. The fundamentals of comncurrent database transactions are also studied.

Prerequisites

Introduction to databases is a prerequisite for this course.

Contents

• Introduction and recap of Introduction to Databases
  • Overwiew
  • Recap of Introduction to Databases
  • Data dictionary
• Strorage and files
  • Disk storage
  • Buffers
  • Files and records
• File processing
  • Organisation of database files
  • Pile
  • Sequential file
  • Hash file
• Indexed file organization
  • Indexed sequaential file
  • B+ -trees
  • Hash based indecies
• Query processing and query optimization
  • Principles of query optimization
  • Implementation of operations of the relational algebra
  • External sorting
• Transaction management
  • General: The idea of transaction, states of transaction, ACID-properties
  • Database recovery
  • Concurrency control

Text books

• The primary text book for the course is Ramakrishnan R. and Gehrke J.: Database Management Systems, 3rd ed., McGraw-Hill, 2003. Course covers Chapters 8-18.
• An alternative text book: Elmasri R., and Navathe S.B: Fundamentals of Database Systems, 4th ed ( Addison-Wesley).

How to pass the course

The course may be taken as a lecture course with associated exercises or as a separate exam.