Browse Books

Reviewer: Toby J. Teorey

The audience for this well-written database book is fairly broad. According to the authors, the intended audiences are university students at the undergraduate (and possibly graduate) level and IT professionals such as systems analysts, applications programmers, and database practitioners. The authors present a thorough analysis of the key issues in database management, database application programming, and database design. Each chapter has a summary, review questions, and numerous exercises. The book consists of four major parts. The first part covers the fundamental database management system (DBMS) components, including the client/server architecture, and major functions such as transaction management, concurrency control, recovery, indexing, and communication services. It then describes the relational model of data and the relational algebra and calculus with a large set of examples. In the second part, a detailed logical and physical database design methodology is presented, with a fully worked-out case study related to a medium-sized business. In the third part, the ISO 1992 SQL standard, SQL-92, is presented thoroughly, including advanced features such as views and integrity enhancements. The book then includes a large section on embedded SQL, with static and dynamic variations, followed by a full chapter devoted to query-by-example (QBE), with clearly illustrated screen examples for each feature. The fourth part has several chapters on selected database implementation issues such as security and integrity; transaction management, including concurrency control and recovery; distributed databases; and object-oriented DBMSs. This book can best be described as an excellent tutorial on the major concepts of database management and languages, and an in-depth look at database design methodologies. As a textbook, it is appropriate for either business-oriented MIS classes or typical computer science programs. The appendices give a more technical treatment of file organization and storage structures and can be skipped by students in the MIS programs. The book compares favorably to the well-known textbooks by Elmasri and Navathe [1]; Date [2]; Silberschatz, Korth, and Sudarshan [3]; O'Neil [4]; and Ramakrishnan [5]. The strengths of the book are the authors' thoroughness and clarity in presenting the various database concepts, the liberal use of examples and graphic illustrations, and the highligh ting of major definitions and concepts. The case studies are easy to understand and go completely from database requirements through logical and physical database design. The preface organization—motivation, audience, and summary—is the best I have seen in any textbook. The coverage of database system selection is unique. There are a few omissions: query processing and optimization are not covered, and the authors do not attempt to go beyond QBE into the other forms software, such as can be found in Access, PowerBuilder, or Visual Basic. However, forms databases are not covered in any of the current texts either. The book is carefully written and well organized, with thorough examples and consistent terminology. It also contains a detailed index and set of references. I recommend it highly, both for classroom use and for new database practitioners.