This text emphasizes the practical side of databases. It provides coverage of database design, uses SQL throughout and focuses on query evaluation and optimization. Chapters added to this second edition include Internet databases, decision support, data mining and object-relational databases.

Table of Contents

Part 1 Basic introduction to database systems: the entity-relationship model; the relational model. Part 2 Relational queries: relational algebra and calculus; SQL - the query language; query-by-example (QBE). Part 3 Data storage and indexing: storing data - disks and files; file organizations and indexes; tree-structured indexing; hash-based indexing. Part 4 Query evaluation: external sorting; evaluation of relational operators; introduction to query optimization; a typical relational query optimizer. Part 5 Database design: schema refinement and normal forms; physical database design and tuning; security. Part 6 Transaction management: transaction management overview; concurrency control; crash recovery. Part 7 Advanced topics: parallel and distributed databases; object-database systems; Internet databases; decision support; data mining; deductive and active databases; additional topics; appendices -database design case study, the Internet shop, the minibase software.