 raw facts have not yet been processed

 for instance:
1) invoice no. = 1234;
2) invoice date = 01 Dec 2008; information
3) sales amount = RM 1450.30
 description of data = metadata
= data dictionary
 It provides
1) a description of data characteristics
2) a set of relationships that link the data
 There are many kinds of data such as
 Numbers
 Text
 Dates
 Pictures
 Audio
 Video
 To store useful information many data types may be needed
together

 Example: recording observations of a species of bird.

 Number of birds observed
 Text would describe the characteristics
 Dates of observation
 Map of migration routes
 Audio recording of the bird calls and
 Video of the flights
 An item of data represents a fact. There are different kinds
of fact, and hence there are different kinds or types of data
to represent different kinds of fact.

 In order to describe something, such as a species of bird for

example, a number of different kinds of facts might be
necessary to complete the description.

 Thus we might want to store the number of birds of that

species that have been observed, a textual description of its
characteristics, dates on which the species has been
observed, etc.
 Scenario 01:
 You call your travel agent to make your reservations for the
vacation you have been waiting for all year.
 The agent responds by saying that she cannot do that just now
because the database is down. She really means that the
reservations computer system is not working.
 Scenario 02:
 You call your mobile phone company to complain about errors
on the latest billing statement.
 The phone company representative says that the database
must have printed some incorrect numbers.
 What the representative really implies is that the billing
application has miscalculated the charges.
 A database is an ordered collection of related data
elements intended to meet the information needs
of an organization and designed to be shared by
multiple users.
 Ordered collection:
 A database is a collection of data elements.
 Not just a random assembly of data structures, but a
collection of data elements put together deliberately with
proper order.
 The various data elements are linked together in the most
logical manner
 Related data elements:
 The data elements in a database are not disjointed
structures without any relationships among them.
 There are related among themselves and also pertinent to
the particular organization.
 Information needs:
 The collection of data elements in a database is there for a
specific purpose.
 In a database for a bank, you will find data elements that
are pertinent to the bank’s business.
 Information needs:
 Example:
You will find customer’s bank balances and ATM
transactions.
You will not find data elements relating to a student’s
major and examination grades that belong in a database
for a university.
 Shared:
 All authorized users in an organization can share the
information stored in its database.
 Integrated information is kept in the database for the
purpose of sharing so that all user groups may collaborate
and accomplish the organization’s objectives.
 A shared collection of logically related data (and a
description of this data), designed to meet the
information needs of an organization.
 identify the important objects in database
 identify logical relationships between objects
 for instance: a customer buys an orange
 A software system that enables users to define,
create and maintain the database and also provides
controlled access to the database
1) invoice no. = 1234;
2) invoice date = 01 Dec 08;
3) sales amount = RM1450.30
1) Data dictionary management
2) Data storage management
3) Data transformation and presentation
4) Security management
5) Multi-user access control
6) Backup and recovery management
7) Data integrity management
 stores the definitions of data and relationships in a data
dictionary
 all programs that access the data in database work through
the DBMS
 any changes made in a database structure are automatically
recorded in the data dictionary
 creates and manages the complex structures required for
data storage
 it relief us from difficult task of defining and programming
the physical data characteristics
 transforms entered data to match to the data structures that
are required to store the data
 for instance: date format. An end user in England would
expect to enter date such as July 11, 2008 as “11/07/2008” but
same date would be entered in the United States as
“07/11/2008”
 regardless of the data presentation format, it must manage
the date in the proper format for each country
 ensures user security and data privacy within the database
 security rules determine which users can access the
database, which data items each may access, and which data
operations (read, add, delete or modify) the user may
perform
 assign access privileges to various database components
such as queries and reports
 enable many users to access shared data
concurrently and no interference that can result in
inconsistencies can occur
 provides backup and data recovery procedures to ensure
data safety and integrity
 allow to perform routine and special backup and restore
procedures
 provides a mechanism to recover the database to a
consistent state if a system crash, media failure, hardware or
software error causing the DBMS to stop
 ensure integrity rules to eliminate data integrity problems,
consequently minimizing data redundancy and maximizing
data consistency
 database integrity refers to the correctness and consistency
of stored data
 integrity is concerned with the quality of data itself
 integrity is usually expressed in terms of constraints, which
are consistency rules that database is not permitted to break
1) control of data redundancy
2) data consistency
3) sharing of data
4) improved data integrity
1) complexity
2) cost of conversion
3) performance
4) higher impact of a failure
 it does not eliminate redundancy entirely, but controls the
amount of redundancy inherent in the database
 for example, it’s necessary to duplicate key data items to
model relationships between data to improve performance
 by controlling redundancy, reducing the risk of
inconsistencies occurring
 if data is stored more than once, system must ensure that all
copies of the data are kept consistent
 database belongs to the entire organization and can be
shared by all authorized users
 data integration allows to define and the DBMS to ensure
integrity constraints may apply to data within a record or
relationships between records
 DBMS is an extremely complex piece of software, and all
users must understand the DBMS’s functionality to take full
advantage of it
 the cost of converting existing applications to run on the new
DBMS and hardware is high
 it includes the cost of training staff to use new system;
employ the specialist staff to help with conversion and
running of the system
 DBMS is written to be more general, to cater for many
applications rather than just one
 some applications may not run as fast using a DBMS as they
did before
 for instance, a file-based system is written for a specific
application, such as invoicing
 since all users and applications rely on the availability of the
DBMS, the failure of any component can bring operations to
a complete stop until the failure is repaired