database

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A database is an integrated collection of logically related records or files consolidated into a common pool that provides data for one or more multiple uses.

One way of classifying databases involves the type of content, for example: bibliographic, full-text, numeric, image. Other classification methods start from examining database models or database architectures: see below.

The data in a database is organized according to a database model. As of 2009^[update] the relational model occurs most commonly. Other models such as the hierarchical model and the network model use a more explicit representation of relationships.

Architecture

A number of database architectures exist. Many databases use a combination of strategies. Databases are software-based "containers" that is structure to collect and store information so it can be retrieved, added to, updated or removed in an automatic fashion. Database programs are designed for users so that they can add or delete any information needed. The structure of a database is the table, which consists of rows and columns of information.

Online Transaction Processing systems (OLTP) often use a "row oriented" or an "object oriented" datastore architecture, whereas data-warehouse and other retrieval focused applications like Google's BigTable, or bibliographic database (library catalogue) systems may use a Column oriented DBMS architecture.

Document-Oriented, XML, knowledgebases, as well as frame databases and RDF-stores (also known as triple stores), may also use a combination of these architectures in their implementation.

Not all databases have or need a database schema ("schema-less databases").

Over many years^[update] general-purpose database systems have dominated the database industry. These offer a wide range of functions, applicable to many, if not most circumstances in modern data processing. These have been enhanced with extensible datatypes (pioneered in the PostgreSQL project) to allow development of a very wide range of applications.

There are also other types of databases which cannot be classified as relational databases. Most notable is the object database management system, which stores language objects natively without using a separate data definition language and without translating into a separate storage schema. Unlike relational systems, these object databases store the relationship between complex data types as part of their storage model in a way that does not require runtime calculation of related data using relational algebra execution algorithms.

Database management systems

A database management system (DBMS) consists of software that organizes the storage of data. A DBMS controls the creation, maintenance, and use of the database storage structures of organizations and of their users. It allows organizations to place control of organization wide database development in the hands of Database Administrators (DBAs) and other specialists. In large systems, a DBMS allows users and other softwares to store and retrieve data in a structured way.

Database management systems are usually categorized according to the database model that they support, such as the network, relational or object model. The model tends to determine the query languages that are available to access the database. One commonly used query language for the relational database is SQL, although SQL syntax and function can vary from one DBMS to another. A common query language for the object database is OQL, although not all vendors of object databases implement this, majority of them do implement this method. A great deal of the internal engineering of a DBMS is independent of the data model, and is concerned with managing factors such as performance, concurrency, integrity, and recovery from hardware failures. In these areas there are large differences between the products.

A relational database management system (RDBMS) implements features of the relational model. In this context, Date's "Information Principle" states: "the entire information content of the database is represented in one and only one way. Namely as explicit values in column positions (attributes) and rows in relations (tuples). Therefore, there are no explicit pointers between related tables." This contrasts with the object database management system (ODBMS), which does store explicit pointers between related types.

Components of DBMS

According to the wikibooks open-content textbooks, "Design of Main Memory Database System/Overview of DBMS" Most DBMS as of 2009^[update] are relational DBMS. Other less-used DBMS systems, such as the object DBMS, are generally used in areas of application-specific data management where performance and scalability take higher priority than the flexibility of ad hoc query capabilities provided via the relational algebra execution algorithms of a relational DBMS.

RDBMS components

• Interface drivers - A user or application program initiates either schema modification or content modification. These drivers^[which?] are built on top of SQL. They provide methods to prepare statements, execute statements, fetch results, etc. Examples include DDL, DCL, DML, ODBC, and JDBC. Some vendors provide language-specific proprietary interfaces. For example MySQL provides drivers for PHP, Python, etc.
• SQL engine - This component interprets and executes the SQL query. It comprises three major components (compiler, optimizer, and execution engine).
• Transaction engine - Transactions are sequences of operations that read or write database elements, which are grouped together.
• Relational engine - Relational objects such as Table, Index, and Referential integrity constraints are implemented in this component.
• Storage engine - This component stores and retrieves data records. It also provides a mechanism to store metadata and control information such as undo logs, redo logs, lock tables, etc.

ODBMS components

• Language drivers - A user or application program initiates either schema modification or content modification via the chosen programming language. The drivers then provide the mechanism to manage object lifecycle coupling of the application memory space with the underlying persistent storage. Examples include C++, Java, .NET, and Ruby.
• Query engine - This component is responsible for interpreting and executing language-specific query commands in the form of OQL, LINQ, JDOQL, JPAQL, others. The query engine returns language specific collections of objects which satisfy a query predicate expressed as logical operators e.g. >, <, >=, <=, AND, OR, NOT, GroupBY, etc.
• Transaction engine - Transactions are sequences of operations that read or write database elements, which are grouped together. The transaction engine is concerned with such things as data isolation and consistency in the driver cache and data volumes by coordinating with the storage engine.
• Storage engine - This component stores and retrieves objects in an arbitrarily complex model. It also provides a mechanism to manage and store metadata and control information such as undo logs, redo logs, lock graphs, etc.

Primary tasks of DBMS packages

• Database Development: used to define and organize the content, relationships, and structure of the data needed to build a database.
• Database Interrogation: can access the data in a database for information retrieval and report generation. End users can selectively retrieve and display information and produce printed reports and documents.
• Database Maintenance: used to add, delete, update, correct, and protect the data in a database.
• Application Development: used to develop prototypes of data entry screens, queries, forms, reports, tables, and labels for a prototyped application. Or use 4GL or 4th Generation Language or application generator to develop program codes.

Types

Operational database

These databases store detailed data needed to support the operations of the entire organization. They are also called subject-area databases (SADB), transaction databases, and production databases. These are all examples:

• Customer databases
• Personal databases
• Inventory databases

Analytical database

These databases store data and information extracted from selected operational and external databases. They consist of summarized data and information most needed by an organization's management and other^[which?] end-users. Some people refer to analytical databases as multidimensional databases, management databases, or information databases.

Data warehouse

A data warehouse stores data from current and previous years — data extracted from the various operational databases of an organization. It becomes the central source of data that has been screened, edited, standardized and integrated so that it can be used by managers and other end-user professionals throughout an organization

Distributed database

These are databases of local work-groups and departments at regional offices, branch offices, manufacturing plants and other work sites. These databases can include segments of both common operational and common user databases, as well as data generated and used only at a user’s own site.

End-user database

These databases consist of a variety of data files developed by end-users at their workstations. Examples of these are collections of documents in spreadsheets, word processing and even downloaded files.

External database

These databases provide access to external, privately-owned data online — available for a fee to end-users and organizations from commercial services. Access to a wealth of information from external database is available for a fee from commercial online services and with or without charge from many sources in the Internet.

Hypermedia databases on the web

These are a set of interconnected multimedia pages at a web-site. They consist of a home page and other hyperlinked pages^{[citation needed]} of multimedia or mixed media such as text, graphic, photographic images, video clips, audio etc.

Navigational database

Navigational databases are characterized by the fact that objects in it are found primarily by following references from other objects. Traditionally navigational interfaces are procedural, though one could characterize some modern systems like XPath as being simultaneously navigational and declarative.

In-memory databases

In-memory databases primarily rely on main memory for computer data storage. This contrasts with database management systems which employ a disk-based storage mechanism. Main memory databases are faster than disk-optimized databases since^{[citation needed]} the internal optimization algorithms are simpler and execute fewer CPU instructions. Accessing data in memory provides faster and more predictable performance than disk. In applications where response time is critical, such as telecommunications network equipment that operates emergency systems, main memory databases are often used.

Document-oriented databases

Document-oriented databases are computer programs designed for document-oriented applications. These systems may be implemented as a layer above a relational database or an object database. As opposed to relational databases, document-based databases do not store data in tables with uniform sized fields for each record. Instead, they store each record as a document that has certain characteristics. Any number of fields of any length can be added to a document. Fields can also contain multiple pieces of data.

Real-time databases

A real-time database is a processing system designed to handle workloads whose state may change constantly. This differs from traditional databases containing persistent data, mostly unaffected by time. For example, a stock market changes rapidly and dynamically. Real-time processing means that a transaction is processed fast enough for the result to come back and be acted on right away. Real-time databases are useful for accounting, banking, law, medical records, multi-media, process control, reservation systems, and scientific data analysis. As computers increase in power and can store more data, real-time databases become integrated into society and are employed in many applications.

Relational Database

The standard of business computing. Relational databases are the most commonly used database today^{[citation needed]}. It uses the table to structure information so that it can be readily and easily searched through.

Models

Post-relational database models

Products offering a more general data model than the relational model are sometimes classified^{[by whom?]} as post-relational. The data model in such products incorporates relations but is not constrained by the Information Principle^{[clarification needed]}, which requires the representation of all information by data values in relation to it.^{[original research?]}

Some of these extensions to the relational model actually integrate concepts from technologies that pre-date the relational model. For example, they allow representation of a directed graph with trees on the nodes.

Some products implementing such models do so by extending relational database systems with non-relational features. Others, however, have arrived in much the same place by adding relational features to pre-relational systems. Paradoxically, this allows products that are historically pre-relational, such as PICK and MUMPS, to make a plausible claim to be post-relational in their current architecture.

Object database models

In recent years^[update], the object-oriented paradigm has been applied^{[by whom?]} to database technology, creating various kinds of new programming models known as object databases. These databases attempt to bring the database world and the application-programming world closer together, in particular by ensuring that the database uses the same type system as the application program. This aims to avoid the overhead (sometimes referred to as the impedance mismatch) of converting information between its representation in the database (for example as rows in tables) and its representation in the application program (typically as objects). At the same time, object databases attempt to introduce key ideas of object programming, such as encapsulation and polymorphism, into the world of databases.

A variety of these ways have been tried^{[by whom?]} for storing objects in a database. Some products have approached the problem from the application-programming side, by making the objects manipulated by the program persistent. This also typically requires the addition of some kind of query language, since conventional programming languages do not have the ability to find objects based on their information content. Others have attacked the problem from the database end, by defining an object-oriented data model for the database, and defining a database programming language that allows full programming capabilities as well as traditional query facilities.

Storage structures

This section requires expansion.

Databases may store relational tables/indexes in memory or on hard disk in one of many forms:

• ordered/unordered flat files
• ISAM
• heaps
• hash buckets
• B+ trees

These have various advantages and disadvantages discussed further in the main article on this topic. The most commonly used^{[citation needed]} are B+ trees and ISAM.

Object databases use a range of storage mechanisms. Some use virtual memory-mapped files to make the native language (C++, Java etc.) objects persistent. This can be highly efficient but it can make multi-language access more difficult. Others break the objects down into fixed- and varying-length components that are then clustered tightly together in fixed sized blocks on disk and reassembled into the appropriate format either for the client or in the client address space. Another popular technique involves storing the objects in tuples (much like a relational database) which the database server then reassembles for the client.

Other important design choices relate to the clustering of data by category (such as grouping data by month, or location), creating pre-computed views known as materialized views, partitioning data by range or hash. Memory management and storage topology can be important design choices for database designers as well. Just as normalization is used to reduce storage requirements and improve the extensibility of the database, conversely denormalization is often used to reduce join complexity and reduce execution time for queries.^[1]

Indexing

All of these databases can take advantage of indexing to increase their speed. This technology has advanced tremendously since its early uses in the 1960s and 1970s. The most common^{[citation needed]} kind of index is a sorted list of the contents of some particular table column, with pointers to the row associated with the value. An index allows a set of table rows matching some criterion to be quickly located. Typically, indexes are also stored in the various forms of data-structure mentioned above (such as B-trees, hashes, and linked lists). Usually, a database designer selects specific techniques to increase efficiency in the particular case of the type of index required.

Most relational DBMSs and some object DBMSs have the advantage that indexes can be created or dropped without changing existing applications making use of them, The database chooses between many different strategies based on which one it estimates will run the fastest. In other words, indexes act transparently to the application or end-user querying the database; while they affect performance, any SQL command will run with or without indexes to compute the result of an SQL statement. The RDBMS will produce a query plan of how to execute the query: often generated by analyzing the run times of the different algorithms and select the quickest process. Some of the key algorithms that deal with joins are nested loop join, sort-merge join and hash join. Which of these an RDBMS selects may depend on whether an index exists, what type it is, and its cardinality.

An index speeds up access to data, but it has disadvantages as well. First, every index increases the amount of storage used on the hard drive which is also necessary for the database file, and second, the index must be updated each time the data are altered, and this costs time. (Thus an index saves time in the reading of data, but it costs time in entering and altering data. It thus depends on the use to which the data are to be put whether an index is overall a net plus or minus in the quest for efficiency.)

A special case of an index is a primary index based on a primary key: a primary index must ensure a unique reference to a record. Often, for this purpose one simply uses a running index-number (ID number). Primary indexes play a significant role in relational databases, and they can speed up access to data considerably.

Transactions and concurrency

In addition to their data model, most practical databases ("transactional databases") attempt to enforce database transactions. Ideally, the database software should enforce the ACID rules, summarized here:

• Atomicity: Either all the tasks in a transaction must be done, or none of them. The transaction must be completed, or else it must be undone (rolled back).
• Consistency: Every transaction must preserve the integrity constraints — the declared consistency rules — of the database. It cannot leave the data in a contradictory state.
• Isolation: Two simultaneous transactions cannot interfere with one another. Intermediate results within a transaction must remain invisible to other transactions.
• Durability: Completed transactions cannot be aborted later or their results discarded. They must persist through (for instance) restarts of the DBMS after crashes.

In practice, many DBMSs allow the selective relaxation of most of these rules — for better performance.

Concurrency control ensures that transactions execute in a safe manner and follow the ACID rules. The DBMS must be able to ensure that only serializable, recoverable schedules are allowed, and that no actions of committed transactions are lost while undoing aborted transactions.

Replication

Replication of databases often relates closely to transactions. If a database can log its individual actions, one can create a duplicate of the data in real time. The duplicate can be used to improve performance and/or availability of the whole database system.

Common replication concepts include:

• master/slave Replication: All write-requests are performed on the master and then replicated to the slave(s)
• quorum: The result of Read and Write requests are calculated by querying a "majority" of replicas
• multimaster: Two or more replicas sync each other via a transaction identifier

Parallel synchronous replication of databases enables the replication of transactions on multiple servers simultaneously, which provides a method for backup and security as well as data availability. This is commonly referred to as database clustering ^{[2] [3]}.

Security

Database security denotes the system, processes, and procedures that protect a database from unintended activity. Enforcing security is one of the major tasks of the DBA.

DBMSs usually enforce security through access control, auditing, and encryption:

• Access control ensures and restricts who can connect and what can be done to the database.
• Auditing logs what action or change has been performed, when and by whom.
• Encryption: many commercial database vendors provide built-in encryption mechanisms. Data is encoded natively into the tables and deciphered "on the fly" when a query comes in. Connections can also be secured and encrypted if required using DSA, MD5, SSL or legacy encryption standards.

In the United Kingdom, legislation protecting the public from unauthorized disclosure of personal information held on databases falls under the Office of the Information Commissioner. Organizations based in the United Kingdom and holding personal data in electronic format (databases for example) must register with the Data Commissioner.^[4]

Locking

This section requires expansion.

Databases handles multiple concurrent operations with locking. This is how concurrency and some form of basic integrity is managed within the database system. Such locks can be applied on a row level, or on other levels like page (a basic data block), extent (multiple array of pages) or even an entire table. This helps maintain the integrity of the data by ensuring that only one process at a time can modify the same data.

In basic filesystem files or folders, only one lock at a time can be set^{[citation needed]}, restricting the usage to one process only. Databases, on the other hand, can set and hold mutiple locks at the same time on the different levels of the physical data structure. The database engine locking scheme determines how to set and maintain locks based on the submitted SQL or transactions by the users. Generally speaking, any activity on the database should involve some or extensive locking.

As of 2009^[update] most DBMS systems use shared and exclusive locks. Exclusive locks mean that no other lock can acquire the current data object as long as the exclusive lock lasts. Exclusive locks are usually set while the database needs to change data, like during an UPDATE or DELETE operation.

Shared locks can take ownership one from the other of the current data structure.^[5] Shared locks are usually used while the database is reading data (during a SELECT operation). The number, nature of locks and time the lock holds a data block can have a huge impact on the database performances. Bad locking can lead to disastrous performance response (usually the result of poor SQL requests, or inadequate database physical structure)

The isolation level of the data server enforces default locking behavior. Changing the isolation level will affect how shared or exclusive locks must be set on the data for the entire database system. Default isolation is generally 1, where data can not be read while it is modified, forbidding the return of "ghost data" to end users.

At some point intensive or inappropriate exclusive locking can lead to a "deadlock" situation between two locks, where none of the locks can be released because they try to acquire resources mutually from each other. The database should have a fail-safe mechanism which will automatically "sacrifice" one of the locks, thus releasing the resource. Processes or transactions involved in the "deadlock" get rolled back.

Databases can also be locked for other reasons, like access restrictions for given levels of user. Some DBAs also lock databases for routine maintenance, which prevents changes being made during the maintenance. See "Locking tables and databases" (section in some documentation / explanation from IBM) for more detail.) However, many modern databases don't lock the database during routine maintenance. e.g. "Routine Database Maintenance" for PostgreSQL.

Applications

Databases function in many applications, spanning virtually the entire range of computer software. Databases are the preferred method of storage for large multiuser applications, where coordination between many users is needed. Even individual users find them convenient, and many electronic mail programs and personal organizers are based on standard database technology. Software database drivers are available for most database platforms so that application software can use a common API to retrieve the information stored in a database. Commonly used database APIs include JDBC and ODBC.

Databases in New Media

Within New Media, databases are a collection of items in which the user can carry out various operations such as viewing, navigating, create, and searching. Though there are various types of items within the database, each item has the same significance. Unlike a narrative or film, the collections are computerized and therefore may offer a unique experience with each view. This form of data may present a unique presentation of what the world is like. Databases can be seen as a symbolic form of the computer age.

See also

• Comparison of relational database management systems
• Comparison of database tools
• Data hierarchy
• Database theory
• Database-centric architecture
• Document-oriented database
• Government database
• In-memory database
• Object database
• Online database
• Real time database
• Relational database
• Datastructure

References

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (November 2008)

Further reading

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Database

• Database at the Open Directory Project
• "Information on Shared Locks"