UNIT- 1

Introduction to DBMS

1.1 Introduction
A database management system (DBMS) is system software for creating and
managing databases. The DBMS provides users and programmers with a systematic way to
create, retrieve, update and manage data.
A DBMS makes it possible for end users to create, read, update and delete data in a database.
The DBMS essentially serves as an interface between the database and end users or application
programs, ensuring that data is consistently organized and remains easily accessible.
The DBMS manages three important things: the data, the database engine that allows data to be
accessed, locked and modified -- and the database schema, which defines the database’s logical
structure.

Figure: DBMS System.

DBMS act as a interface or intermediate between Database and user. It allows the user or
application to interact with database in systematic way.

1.2 Database System Architecture:

The design of a DBMS depends on its architecture. It can be centralized or decentralized or
hierarchical. The architecture of a DBMS can be seen as either single tier or multi-tier. An n-
tier architecture divides the whole system into related but independent n modules, which can
be independently modified, altered, changed, or replaced.
This architecture is a three layered architecture the bottom layer consist of the Database
which consisting of sub components like data dictionary and data files with indices, middle
layer is DBMS which consist of Query processor and stored data manager. Top layer is a view
layer which consists of various users and applications and user trying to access data from
database.
Database Management System Unit-1: Introduction to DBMS

Application End User DDL

DML pre DML DDL Query

Compiler Compiler Compiler Processor

Query Evaluation Engine

Stored Data Manager

Transaction Buffer File Authorization

Manager Manager Manager Manager

Database

Data Files Indices Data Dictionary

Figure: DBMS Architecture.

1. DBMS Layer: it is a middle layer consisting of two major components as follow.

A. Query Processor Components:

 DML Pre-compiler: It translates DML statements in a query language into low level
instructions that query evaluation engine understands. It also attempts to transform user's
request into an equivalent but more efficient form.
 Embedded DML Pre-compiler: It converts DML statements embedded in an application
program to normal procedure calls in the host language. The Pre-compiler must interact with
the DML compiler to generate the appropriate code.
 DDL Interpreter: It interprets the DDL statements and records them in a set of tables
containing meta data or data dictionary.
 Query Evaluation Engine: It executes low-level instructions generated by the DML
compiler.

B. Storage Manager Components: A storage manager is a program module which is

responsible for storing, retrieving and updating data in the database. Following are the
components of the storage manager;
 Authorization and Integrity Manager: It tests the integrity constraints and checks the
authorization of users to access data.
 Transaction Manager: It ensures that no kind of change will be brought to the database
until a transaction has been completed totally.
 File Manager: It manages the allocation of space on disk storage and the data structures
used to represent information stored on disk.
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 Buffer Manager: It decides which data is in need to be cached in main memory and then
fetch it up in main memory. This is very important as it defines the speed in which the database
can be used.

2. Database Layer: it is the Bottom layer consisting of following sub components.

 Data Dictionary: data dictionary is a file or a set of files that contains a database's
metadata. The data dictionary contains records about other objects in the database, such as
data ownership, data relationships to other objects, and other data.
The data dictionary is a crucial component of any relational database. Ironically, because of its
importance, it is invisible to most database users. Typically, only database administrators
interact with the data dictionary.
 Data Files: A data file is file which stores data to be used by a application or user .
 DBMS Indexing: We know that data is stored in the form of records. Every record has a key
field, which helps it to be recognized uniquely. Indexing is a data structure technique to
efficiently retrieve records from the database files based on some attributes on which
the indexing has been done.

1.3 View Levels of DBMS Architecture/ Level of Data Abstraction in DBMS

This architecture describe the various views and levels of data abstraction in DBMS system
which are as Physical Level, Conceptual Level and External Level

Figure: View Level/ Data Abstraction Level in DBMS

1. Physical Level: Physical level describes the physical storage structure of data in database,
as well it also describe how the data is stored and retrieve in database and also describe
compression and encryption techniques applied on data. It is also known as Internal Level.
This level is very close to physical storage of data. At lowest level, it is stored in the form of bits
with the physical addresses on the secondary storage device. At highest level, it can be viewed

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in the form of files. The internal schema defines the various stored data types. It uses a physical
data model.

2. Conceptual Level: Conceptual level also called logical or global level describes the structure of
the whole database for a group of users. It describe how the data will be appered to various user and
relationship between various data. Conceptual schema is a representation of the entire content of the
database. This schema contains all the information to build relevant external records. It hides the
internal details of physical storage.

3. External Level: External level is also called view level is related to the data which is viewed by
individual end users. This level includes a no. of user views or external schemas. This level is closest
to the user. External view describes the segment of the database that is required for a particular user
group and hides the rest of the database from that user group. The different user may have different
views.

1.4 Data Models in DBMS

A data model is an abstract model that organizes elements of data and standardizes how
they relate to one another and to properties of the real world entities. Data models describe
how the data in database is get organized or stored and how it is related with each other’s the
different types of data models are as follow.
1. Relation model 7. Entity relation Model
2. Network model 8. Flat data model
3. Hierarchical model 9. Semi structured model
4. Object oriented model 10. Associative model
5. Context data model 11. Record base model
6. Object relation model

1. Relational Data Model: Relational model is the most popular model and the most
extensively used model. In this model the data can be stored in the tables and this storing is
called as relation, the relations can be normalized and the normalized relation values are called
atomic values. Each row in a relation contains unique value and it is called as tuple, each
column contains value from same domain and it is called as attribute.

Figure: Relational Data Model

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Advantages

 Structural independence – changes in the relational data structure do not affect the
DBMS’s data access in any way
 Improved conceptual simplicity by concentrating on the logical view
 Easier database design, implementation, management, and use
 Powerful database management system.

Disadvantages
 Can facilitate poor design and implementation

2. Network Data Model: Network model has the entities which are organized in a graphical
representation and some entities in the graph can be accessed through several paths. Its
distinguishing feature is that the schema, viewed as a graph in which object types are nodes
and relationship types are arcs, is not restricted to being a hierarchy or lattice. It can preserve
one to many or many to many relation.

Figure: Network Data Model

Advantages

 Provide very efficient "High-speed" retrieval.

 Simplicity The network model is conceptually simple and easy to design.
 Ability to handle more relationship types The network model can handle the one-to-many
and many-to-many relationships.
 Data Integrity In a network model, no member can exist without an owner.
 Data Independence The network model draws a clear line of demarcation between
programs and the complex physical storage details.

Disadvantages

 System complexity In a network model, data are accessed one record at a time.
 Making structural modifications to the database is very difficult in the network database
model as the data access method is navigational.
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 Any changes made to the database structure require the application programs to be
modified before they can access data.

3. Hierarchical Data Model: Hierarchical model has one parent entity with several children
entity but at the top we should have only one entity called root. For example, department is the
parent entity called root and it has several children entities like students, professors and many
more.
A hierarchical database model is a data model in which the data are organized into a tree-like
structure. The data are stored as records which are connected to one another through links. A
record is a collection of fields, with each field containing only one value. It preserves one to
many relations.

Figure: Hierarchical Data Model

Advantages
 Simplicity: it is easier to view data arranged in manner. This makes this type of database
more suitable for the purpose.
 Security: This database system can enforce varying degree of security feature unlike flat-file
system.
 Database Integrity: Because of its inherent parent-child structure, database integrity is
highly promoted in these systems.
 Efficiency: The hierarchical database model is a very efficient, one when the database
contains a large number of one-to-many relationships and when the users require large
number of transactions, using data whose relationships are fixed.
Disadvantages
 Complexity of Implementation: The actual implementation of a hierarchical database
depends on the physical storage of data. This makes the implementation complicated.
 Difficulty in Management: The movement of a data segment from one location to another
cause all the accessing programs to be modified making database management a complex affair.
 Complexity of Programming: Programming a hierarchical database is relatively complex
because the programmers must know the physical path of the data items.
 Poor Portability: The database is not easily portable mainly because there is little or no
standard existing for these types of database.

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 Database Management Problems: If you make any changes in the database structure of a
hierarchical database, then you need to make the necessary changes in all the application
programs that access the database. Thus, maintaining the database and the applications can
become very difficult.

4. Object oriented Data Model: Object oriented data model is one of the developed data
model and this can hold the audio, video and graphic files. These consist of data piece and the
methods which are the DBMS instructions. OODBMS should be used when there is a business
need, high performance required, and complex data is being used. Due to the object oriented
nature of the database model, it is much simpler to approach a problem with these needs in
terms of objects.
Advantages:
 Suitable for application expecting high performance.
 Due to the object oriented nature of the database model, it is much simpler to approach a
problem
Disadvantages:
 complex data is being used
 Complex relations are used

5. Object relation Data Model: Object relation model is a very powerful model but coming
to its design it is quiet complex. This complexity is not problem because it gives efficient results
and widespread with huge applications. It has a feature which allows working with other
models like working with the very known relation model.
Advantages of Object Relational model is inheritance. The Object Relational data model allows
its users to inherit objects, tables etc. so that they can extend their functionality. An inherited
object contains new attributes as well as the attributes that were inherited.
The object relational data model can get quite complicated and difficult to handle at times as it
is a combination of the Object oriented data model and Relational data model and utilizes the
functionalities of both of them. This hybrid database model combines the simplicity of the
relational model with some of the advanced functionality of the object-oriented database
model. In essence, it allows designers to incorporate objects into the familiar table structure.

6. Entity Relationship Data Model: This model represents the data diagrammatically.
Entity relationship model is based on the notion of the real world entities and their
relationships. While formulating the real world scenario in to the database model an entity set
is created. This model captures the relationships between real-world entities much like the
network model, but it isn’t as directly tied to the physical structure of the database. Instead, it’s
often used for designing a database conceptually.
Here, the people, places, and things about which data points are stored are referred to as
entities, each of which has certain attributes that together make up their domain. The
cardinality, or relationships between entities, are mapped as well. and this model is dependent
on two vital things and they are 1. Entity and their attributes, 2. Relationships among entities.

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Figure: ER Data Model

7. Context Data Model: Context data model is a flexible model because it is a collection of
many data models. It is a collection of the data models like object oriented data model, network
model, semi structured model. So, in this different types of works can be done due to the
versatility of it. A context model defines how context data are structured and maintained It
plays a key role in supporting efficient context management.

Figure: Context Data Model

8. Semi structured Data Model: Semi structured data model is a self-describing data
model, in this the information that is normally associated with a scheme is contained within the
data and this property is called as the self-describing property.

9. Associative Model: Associative model has a division property, this divides the real world
things about which data is to be recorded in two sorts i.e. between entities and associations.
Thus, this model does the division for dividing the real world data to the entities and
associations. The associative model of data is a data model for database systems. Other data
models, such as the relational model and the object data model, are record-based. These models
involve encompassing attributes about a thing, such as a car, in a record structure. Such
attributes might be registration, colour, make, model, etc. In the associative model, everything
which has “discrete independent existence” is model as an entity, and relationships between
them are modeled as associations.

10. Record base model: This model specify the overall strcture of database. Like Object based
model, they also describe data at the conceptual and view levels. These models specify logical
structure of database with records, fields and attributes.

11. Flat Data Model: The flat model is the earliest, simplest data model. It simply lists all the
data in a single table, consisting of columns and rows. In order to access or manipulate the

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data, the computer has to read the entire flat file into memory, which makes this model
inefficient for all but the smallest data sets.

1.5 Entity Relation Model

The ER model defines the conceptual view of a database. It works around real-world entities
and the associations among them. At view level, the ER model is considered a good option for
designing databases.
1.5.1 Components of E-R Model: The different components of ER Model are as follow.

1. Entity: An entity can be a real-world object, either animate or inanimate, that can be easily
identifiable. For example, in a school database, students, teachers, classes, and courses offered
can be considered as entities. All these entities have some attributes or properties that give
them their identity.
An entity set is a collection of similar types of entities. An entity set may contain entities with
attribute sharing similar values. For example, a Students set may contain all the students of a
school; likewise a Teachers set may contain all the teachers of a school from all faculties. Entity
sets need not be disjoint.
Entities are represented by means of rectangles. Rectangles are named with the entity set they
represent.

2. Attributes: Entities are represented by means of their properties, called attributes. All
attributes have values. For example, a student entity may have name, class, and age as
attributes.
There exists a domain or range of values that can be assigned to attributes. For example, a
student's name cannot be a numeric value. It has to be alphabetic. A student's age cannot be
negative, etc. Attributes are the properties of entities. Attributes are represented by means of
ellipses. Every ellipse represents one attribute and is directly connected to its entity
(rectangle).
Types of Attributes
 Simple attribute − Simple attributes are atomic values, which cannot be divided further.
For example, a student's phone number is an atomic value of 10 digits.
 Composite attribute − Composite attributes are made of more than one simple attribute.
For example, a student's complete name may have first_name and last_name.If the attributes
are composite, they are further divided in a tree like structure. Every node is then connected to
its attribute. That is, composite attributes are represented by ellipses that are connected with
an ellipse.
 Derived attribute − Derived attributes are the attributes that do not exist in the physical
database, but their values are derived from other attributes present in the database. For
example, average_salary in a department should not be saved directly in the database, instead
it can be derived. For another example, age can be derived from data_of_birth.
derived attributes are depicted by dashed ellipse.
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 Single-value attribute − Single-value attributes contain single value. For example −

Social_Security_Number.
 Multi-value attribute − Multi-value attributes may contain more than one values. For
example, a person can have more than one phone number, email_address,
etc.Multivalued attributes are depicted by double ellipse.
These attribute types can come together in a way like −
 simple single-valued attributes
 simple multi-valued attributes
 composite single-valued attributes
 composite multi-valued attributes

Figure: Simple Attributes Figure: Composite Attributes (Name)

Figure 11: Multi Valued Attributes (PhoneNo)

Figure : Derived Attributes (Age)

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3. Entity-Set and Keys: Key is an attribute or collection of attributes that uniquely identifies
an entity among entity set.For example, the roll_number of a student makes him/her
identifiable among students.
 Super Key − A set of attributes (one or more) that collectively identifies an entity in an
entity set.
A superkey is a set of attributes within a table whose values can be used to uniquely identify a
tuple. A candidate keyis a minimal set of attributes necessary to identify a tuple; this is also
called a minimal superkey. Given an employee schema consisting of the attributes employeeID,
name, job, and departmentID, where no value in the employeeID attribute is ever repeated, we
could use the employeeID in combination with any or all other attributes of this table to
uniquely identify a tuple in the table. Examples of super keys in this schema would be
{employeeID, Name}, {employeeID, Name, job}, and {employeeID, Name, job, departmentID}.
The last example is known as trivial super key, because it uses all attributes of this table to
identify the tuple.
 Candidate Key − A minimal super key is called a candidate key. An entity set may have
more than one candidate key.
The minimal set of attribute which can uniquely identify a tuple is known as candidate key.
For Example, STUD_NO in STUDENT relation. The value of Candidate Key is unique and non-
null for every tuple. For Example, STUD_NO as well as STUD_PHONE both are candidate keys
for relation STUDENT.
 Primary Key − A primary key is one of the candidate keys chosen by the database designer
to uniquely identify the entity set.
4. Relationship: The association among entities is called a relationship. For example, an
employee works_at a department, a student enrolls in a course. Here, Works_at and Enrolls
are called relationships.
5. Relationship Set: A set of relationships of similar type is called a relationship set. Like
entities, a relationship too can have attributes. These attributes are called descriptive
attributes.
6. Degree of Relationship:The number of participating entities in a relationship defines the
degree of the relationship.
 Binary = degree 2
 Ternary = degree 3
 n-ary = degree
7. Mapping Cardinalities: Cardinality defines the number of entities in one entity set, which
can be associated with the number of entities of other set via relationship set.
 One-to-one − One entity from entity set A can be associated with at most one entity of entity
set B and vice versa.
 One-to-many − One entity from entity set A can be associated with more than one entities of
entity set B however an entity from entity set B, can be associated with at most one entity.

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Figure: One To One Cardinality Figure : One To Many Cardinality

 Many-to-one − More than one entities from entity set A can be associated with at most one
entity of entity set B, however an entity from entity set B can be associated with more than one
entity from entity set A.
 Many-to-many − One entity from A can be associated with more than one entity from B and
vice versa.

Figure : Many To One Cardinality Figure: Many To Many Cardinality

8. Participation Constraints
 Total Participation − Each entity is involved in the relationship. Total participation is
represented by double lines.
 Partial participation − Not all entities are involved in the relationship. Partial participation
is represented by single lines.

The ER Model has the power of expressing database entities in a conceptual hierarchical
manner. As the hierarchy goes up, it generalizes the view of entities, and as we go deep in the
hierarchy, it gives us the detail of every entity included.

1.6 Enhanced ER Model: EER is a high-level data model that incorporates the extensions
to the original ER model. It is a diagrammatic technique for displaying the following concepts.

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These concepts are used when the comes in EER schema and the resulting schema diagrams
called as EER Diagrams.

 Sub Class and Super Class

 Specialization and Generalization
 Union or Category
 Aggregation

1.6.1 Features of EER Model

 EER creates a design more accurate to database schemas.

 It reflects the data properties and constraints more precisely.
 It includes all modeling concepts of the ER model.
 Diagrammatic technique helps for displaying the EER schema.
 It includes the concept of specialization and generalization.
 It is used to represent a collection of objects that is union of objects of different of different
entity types.

1. Generalization: As mentioned above, the process of generalizing entities, where the

generalized entities contain the properties of all the generalized entities, is called
generalization. In generalization, a number of entities are brought together into one
generalized entity based on their similar characteristics. For example, pigeon, house sparrow,
crow and dove can all be generalized as Birds.Generalization is the process of generalizing the
entities which contain the properties of all the generalized entities.It is a bottom approach, in
which two lower level entities combine to form a higher level entity.Generalization is the
reverse process of Specialization.

2. Specialization: Specialization is the opposite of generalization. In specialization, a group of

entities is divided into sub-groups based on their characteristics. Take a group ‘Person’ for
example. A person has name, date of birth, gender, etc. These properties are common in all
persons, human beings. But in a company, persons can be identified as employee, employer,
customer, or vendor, based on what role they play in the company.Specialization is a process
that defines a group entities which is divided into sub groups based on their characteristic. It is
a top down approach, in which one higher entity can be broken down into two lower level
entity.It maximizes the difference between the members of an entity by identifying the unique
characteristic or attributes of each member.

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Similarly, in a school database, persons can be specialized as teacher, student, or a staff, based
on what role they play in school as entities.
3. Inheritance: We use all the above features of ER-Model in order to create classes of objects
in object-oriented programming. The details of entities are generally hidden from the user; this
process known as abstraction.
Inheritance is an important feature of Generalization and Specialization. It allows lower-level
entities to inherit the attributes of higher-level entities.

For example, the attributes of a Person class such as name, age, and gender can be inherited by
lower-level entities such as Student or Teacher.

4. Sub Class and Super Class: Sub class and Super class relationship leads the concept of

Inheritance. The relationship between sub class and super class is denoted with symbol.
 Super Class: Super class is an entity type that has a relationship with one or more
subtypes.An entity cannot exist in database merely by being member of any super class.
For example: Shape super class is having sub groups as Square, Circle, Triangle.

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 Sub Class: Sub class is a group of entities with unique attributes.Sub class inherits
properties and attributes from its super class. For example: Square, Circle, Triangle are the sub
class of Shape super class.

5. Category or Union: Category represents a single super class or sub class relationship with
more than one super class. It can be a total or partial participation. example Car booking, Car
owner can be a person, a bank (holds a possession on a Car) or a company. Category (sub class)
→ Owner is a subset of the union of the three super classes → Company, Bank, and Person. A
Category member must exist in at least one of its super classes.

6: Aggregation: Aggregation is a process that represents a relationship between a whole object

and its component parts. It abstracts a relationship between objects and viewing the
relationship as an object. It is a process when two entity is treated as a single entity. In the
example, the relation between College and Course is acting as an Entity in Relation with Student.

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1.7 Database Users & architecture of DBA

1.8.1 Database Users: Database users are the one who really use and take the benefits of database.
There will be different types of users depending on their need and way of accessing the database.

 Application Programmers - They are the developers who interact with the database by
means of DML queries. These DML queries are written in the application programs like C, C++,
JAVA, Pascal etc. These queries are converted into object code to communicate with the
database. For example, writing a C program to generate the report of employees who are
working in particular department will involve a query to fetch the data from database. It will
include a embedded SQL query in the C Program.
 Sophisticated Users - They are database developers, who write SQL queries to
select/insert/delete/update data. They do not use any application or programs to request the
database. They directly interact with the database by means of query language like SQL. These
users will be scientists, engineers, analysts who thoroughly study SQL and DBMS to apply the
concepts in their requirement. In short, we can say this category includes designers and
developers of DBMS and SQL.
 Specialized Users - These are also sophisticated users, but they write special database
application programs. They are the developers who develop the complex programs to the
requirement.
 Stand-alone Users - These users will have stand –alone database for their personal use.
These kinds of database will have readymade database packages which will have menus and
graphical interfaces.
 Native Users - these are the users who use the existing application to interact with the
database. For example, online library system, ticket booking systems, ATMs etc which has
existing application and users use them to interact with the database to fulfill their requests.

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1.8.2 Types of DBA: There are different kinds of DBA depending on the responsibility that he
owns.
 Administrative DBA - This DBA is mainly concerned with installing, and maintaining DBMS
servers. His prime tasks are installing, backups, recovery, security, replications, memory
management, configurations and tuning. He is mainly responsible for all administrative tasks of
a database.
 Development DBA - He is responsible for creating queries and procedure for the
requirement. Basically his task is similar to any database developer.
 Database Architect - Database architect is responsible for creating and maintaining the
users, roles, access rights, tables, views, constraints and indexes. He is mainly responsible for
designing the structure of the database depending on the requirement. These structures will be
used by developers and development DBA to code.
 Data Warehouse DBA -DBA should be able to maintain the data and procedures from
various sources in the data warehouse. These sources can be files, COBOL, or any other
programs. Here data and programs will be from different sources. A good DBA should be able to
keep the performance and function levels from these sources at same pace to make the data
warehouse to work.
 Application DBA -He acts like a bridge between the application program and the database.
He makes sure all the application program is optimized to interact with the database. He
ensures all the activities from installing, upgrading, and patching, maintaining, backup,
recovery to executing the records works without any issues.
 OLAP DBA - He is responsible for installing and maintaining the database in OLAP systems.
He maintains only OLAP databases.

1.8.3 Database Administrators: The life cycle of database starts from designing,
implementing to administration of it. A database for any kind of requirement needs to be
designed perfectly so that it should work without any issues. Once all the design is complete, it
needs to be installed. Once this step is complete, users start using the database. The database
grows as the data grows in the database. When the database becomes huge, its performance
comes down. Also accessing the data from the database becomes challenge. There will be
unused memory in database, making the memory inevitably huge. These administration and
maintenance of database is taken care by database Administrator DBA. A DBA has many
responsibilities. A good performing database is in the hands of DBA.
 Installing and upgrading the DBMS Servers: - DBA is responsible for installing a new
DBMS server for the new projects. He is also responsible for upgrading these servers as there
are new versions comes in the market or requirement. If there is any failure in upgradation of
the existing servers, he should be able revert the new changes back to the older version, thus
maintaining the DBMS working. He is also responsible for updating the service packs/ hot
fixes/ patches to the DBMS servers.
 Design and implementation: - Designing the database and implementing is also DBA’s
responsibility. He should be able to decide proper memory management, file organizations,
error handling, log maintenance etc for the database.
 Performance tuning: - Since database is huge and it will have lots of tables, data,
constraints and indices, there will be variations in the performance from time to time. Also,

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because of some designing issues or data growth, the database will not work as expected. It is
responsibility of the DBA to tune the database performance. He is responsible to make sure all
the queries and programs works in fraction of seconds.
 Migrate database servers: - Sometimes, users using oracle would like to shift to SQL server
or Netezza. It is the responsibility of DBA to make sure that migration happens without any
failure, and there is no data loss.
 Backup and Recovery: - Proper backup and recovery programs needs to be developed by
DBA and has to be maintained him. This is one of the main responsibilities of DBA. Data/objects
should be backed up regularly so that if there is any crash, it should be recovered without much
effort and data loss.
 Security: - DBA is responsible for creating various database users and roles, and giving them
different levels of access rights.
 Documentation: - DBA should be properly documenting all his activities so that if he quits
or any new DBA comes in, he should be able to understand the database without any effort. He
should basically maintain all his installation, backup, recovery, security methods. He should
keep various reports about database performance.

1.8 Legacy System:

Software systems that are developed specially for an organisation have a long lifetime
,Many software systems that are still in use were developed many years ago using technologies
that are now obsolete, These systems are still business critical that is, they are essential for the
normal functioning of the business They have been given the name legacy systems. The
Software system which are developed long year ago but still they are in use are called as legacy
system. There is a significant business risk in simply scrapping a legacy system and replacing it
with a system that has been developed using modern technology. During their lifetime they
have undergone major changes which may not have been documented. Business processes are
reliant on the legacy system, the system may embed business rules that are not formally
documented elsewhere new software development is risky and may not be successful.
Legacy systems are not simply old software systems. Legacy systems are socio-technical
computer-based systems so they include software, hardware, data and business processes.
Changes to one part of the system inevitably involve further changes to other components.
Decisions about these systems are not always governed by objective engineering criteria but
are affected by broader organisational strategies and politics. The different logical parts of a
legacy system and their relationships are illustrated in the following figure.

Figure: Components of Legacy System

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1. System hardware: In many cases, legacy systems have been written for mainframe
hardware which is no longer available, which is expensive to maintain and which may not be
compatible with current organisational IT purchasing policies.
2. Support software: The legacy system may rely on a range of different support software
from the operating system and utilities provided by the hardware manufacturer through to the
compilers used for system development. Again, these may be obsolete and no longer supported
by their original providers.
3. Application software: As I discuss later, the application system which provides the
business services is usually composed of a number of separate programs which have been
developed at different times. Sometime the term legacy system means this application software
system rather than the entire system.
4. Application data: These are the data which are processed by the application system. In
many legacy systems, an immense volume of data has accumulated over the lifetime of the
system. This data may be inconsistent and may be duplicated in different files.
5. Business processes: These are processes which are used in the business to achieve some
business objective. An example of a business process in an insurance company would be issuing
an insurance policy; in a manufacturing company, a business process would be accepting an
order for products and setting up the associated manufacturing process.
6. Business policies and rules: These are definitions of how the business should be carried
out and constraints on the business. Use of the legacy application system may be embedded in
these policies and rules.

Figure: Layered model of a legacy system

An alternative way of looking at these different components of a legacy system is as series of

layers. Each layer depends on the layer immediately below it and interfaces with that layer. If
interfaces are maintained, then it should be possible to make changes within a layer without
affecting either of the adjacent layers.
Legacy application system: The application software in a legacy system is not a single
application program but usually includes a number of different programs. The system may have
started as a single program processing one or two data files but, over time, changes may have
been implemented by adding new programs which share the data and which communicate with
other programs in the system. Similarly, the initial system data files are added to as new
information is required. Different programs share data files so that changes to one program
that affect data inevitably result in changes to other programs.

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Figure Legacy application systems

The different programs in the legacy application system have usually been written by different
people and are often written in different programming languages or in different versions of a
programming language. For example, the original software may have been developed in
COBOL-72 but later programs implemented in a new version of the language, COBOL-80.
Compilers and support software for all of these languages may have to be maintained. This all
adds to the complexity of the system and increases the costs of making changes to it. While
there are still legacy systems that use separate files to maintain their data.

Figure: Database-centred systems

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