Database System Concepts
        Fourth Edition

              Abraham Silberschatz
              Henry F. Korth
              S. Sudarshan

The following syllabus is designed for a two semester sequence. The first semester covers database design and modeling concepts, while the second semester concentrates on implementation techniques.

Semester 1: Database Design and Modeling

• Chapter 1: Introduction
• Chapter 2: Entity-Relationship Model
• Chapter 3: Relational Model
• Chapter 4: SQL
• Chapter 5: Other Relational Languages
• Chapter 6: Integrity Constraints
• Chapter 7: Relational Database Design
• Chapter 8: Object-Oriented Databases
• Chapter 9: Object-Relational Databases
• Chapter 10: XML
• Appendices A and B: Network and Hierarchical Models
• Assignments/Project
  The course should be supplemented by assignments covering database design for a realistic application, and its implementation using SQL on a relational database system
  Additional assignments using object-oriented databases are also recommended. Some OODB systems such as E/Exodus are available in the public domain. Some of the commercial OODB systems such as Versant may be available free for educational institutions (license agreements may need to be signed).

  The project could involve the design of a schema for a realistic application, and the implementation of the entire application using SQL and other development tools such as Java servlets or JSP/ASP/ColdFusion/etc. See Chapter 21 for some sample projects.

Semester 2: Database System Implementation

• Chapter 11: Storage and File Structure
• Chapter 12: Indexing and Hashing
• Chapter 13: Query Processing
• Chapter 14: Query Optimization
• Chapter 15: Transactions
• Chapter 16: Concurrency Control
• Chapter 17: Recovery System
• Chapter 18: Database System Architectures
• Chapter 19: Distributed Databases
• Chapter 20: Parallel Databases
• Miscellaneous
  A selection of topics from Chapter 21 (Application Development and Administration), Chapter 22 (Advanced Querying and Information Retrieval), Chaoter 23 (Advanced Data Types and New Applications), and Chapter 24 (Advanced Transaction Processing) could be covered, perhaps by student presentations, towards the end of the course.
• Assignments/Project
  The course should be supplemented by assignments involving the implementation of components of a relational database system.

  For example, students could construct a relation manager on top of a storage manager such as Exodus. The relation manager should support relation scans with and without primitive predicates (= value, < value, > value). The students could then implement some relational algebra operations, such as joins, top of the relation manager. We recommend the interfaces, such as the relation manager interface, be defined by the instructor.
  Implementing a concurrency control manager may be an alternative to or a supplement to implementing relational algebra operations.

  A more extensive project would be along the lines of the project used in the undergraduate database course in Wisconsin, where students implement not only the layers described above, but also implement a primitive file systems (page files), a primitive collection manager (heap files), and a buffer manager. Thereby students get a feel for all levels of a database system implementation. As before, all interfaces are defined by the instructor. The software system used in the Wisconsin projects is called Minibase.
  

Last updated July 6, 2001.