Unit 6 Database Overview.pptVIP

Unit 6 Database;Introduction; In a university, for example, each department might have it own set of files: the record office kept a file about the student information and their grades, the financial aid office kept its own file about students that needed financial aid to continue their education, the scheduling office kept the names of the professors and the courses they were teaching, the payroll department kept it own file about the whole staff (including professors), and so on. ; Today, however, all of these flat files can be combined in a single entity, the database for the whole university. ②Although it is difficult to give a universally agreed definition of a database, we use the following common definition: a database is a collection of related, logically coherent, data used by the application programs in an organization.;Database Management System; 1. Hardware The hardware is the physical computer system that allows access to data. For example, the terminals, hard disk, main computer, and workstations are considered part of the hardware in a DBMS.; 2. Software The software is the actual program that allows users to access, maintain, and update data. In addition, the software controls which user can access which parts of the data in the database.; 3.Data The data in a database is stored physically on the storage devices. In a database, data is a separate entity from the software that accesses it. This separation allows an organization to change the software without having to change the physical data or the way in which it is stored. If an organization decides to use a DBMS, then all the information needed by the organization should be kept together as one entity, to be accessible by the software in the DBMS.; 4. User The term users in a DBMS has a broad meaning. We can divide users into two categories: end users and application p