DATA MODELS

Data models in DBMS

Data Model is a logical structure of Database. It describes the design of database to reflect entities, attributes, relationship among data, constrains etc.

Types of Data Models

There are several types of data models in DBMS. We will cover them in detail in separate articles(Links to those separate tutorials are already provided below). In this guide, we will just see a basic overview of types of models.

Object based logical Models – Describe data at the conceptual and view levels.

1. E-R Model

2. Object oriented Model

Record based logical Models – Like Object based model, they also describe data at the conceptual and view levels. These models specify logical structure of database with records, fields and attributes.

Relational Model

Hierarchical Model

Network Model – Network Model is same as hierarchical model except that it has graph-like structure rather than a tree-based structure. Unlike hierarchical model, this model allows each record to have more than one parent record.

Entity Relationship Diagram – ER Diagram in DBMS

An Entity–relationship model (ER model) describes the structure of a database with the help of a diagram, which is known as Entity Relationship Diagram (ER Diagram). An ER model is a design or blueprint of a database that can later be implemented as a database. The main components of E-R model are: entity set and relationship set.

What is an Entity Relationship Diagram (ER Diagram)?

An ER diagram shows the relationship among entity sets. An entity set is a group of similar entities and these entities can have attributes. In terms of DBMS, an entity is a table or attribute of a table in database, so by showing relationship among tables and their attributes, ER diagram shows the complete logical structure of a database. Lets have a look at a simple ER diagram to understand this concept.

A simple ER Diagram:

In the following diagram we have two entities Student and College and their relationship. The relationship between Student and College is many to one as a college can have many students however a student cannot study in multiple colleges at the same time. Student entity has attributes such as Stu_Id, Stu_Name & Stu_Addr and College entity has attributes such as Col_ID & Col_Name.

E-R Diagram

Here are the geometric shapes and their meaning in an E-R Diagram. We will discuss these terms in detail in the next section(Components of a ER Diagram) of this guide so don’t worry too much about these terms now, just go through them once.

Rectangle: Represents Entity sets.

Ellipses: Attributes

Diamonds: Relationship Set

Lines: They link attributes to Entity Sets and Entity sets to Relationship Set

Double Ellipses: Multivalued Attributes

Dashed Ellipses: Derived Attributes

Double Rectangles: Weak Entity Sets

Double Lines: Total participation of an entity in a relationship set

Components of ER Diagram

As shown in the above diagram, an ER diagram has three main components:
1. Entity
2. Attribute
3. Relationship

1. Entity

An entity is an object or component of data. An entity is represented as rectangle in an ER diagram.
For example: In the following ER diagram we have two entities Student and College and these two entities have many to one relationship as many students study in a single college. We will read more about relationships later, for now focus on entities.

Weak Entity:

An entity that cannot be uniquely identified by its own attributes and relies on the relationship with other entity is called weak entity. The weak entity is represented by a double rectangle. For example – a bank account cannot be uniquely identified without knowing the bank to which the account belongs, so bank account is a weak entity.

2. Attribute

An attribute describes the property of an entity. An attribute is represented as Oval in an ER diagram. There are four types of attributes:

1. Key attribute

2. Composite attribute

3. Multivalued attribute

4. Derived attribute

1. Key attribute:

A key attribute can uniquely identify an entity from an entity set. For example, student roll number can uniquely identify a student from a set of students. Key attribute is represented by oval same as other attributes however the text of key attribute is underlined.

2. Composite attribute:

An attribute that is a combination of other attributes is known as composite attribute. For example, In student entity, the student address is a composite attribute as an address is composed of other attributes such as pin code, state, country.

3. Multivalued attribute:

An attribute that can hold multiple values is known as multivalued attribute. It is represented with double ovals in an ER Diagram. For example – A person can have more than one phone numbers so the phone number attribute is multivalued.

4. Derived attribute:

A derived attribute is one whose value is dynamic and derived from another attribute. It is represented by dashed oval in an ER Diagram. For example – Person age is a derived attribute as it changes over time and can be derived from another attribute (Date of birth).

ER Diagram with multivalued and derived attributes

3. Relationship

A relationship is represented by diamond shape in ER diagram, it shows the relationship among entities. There are four types of relationships:

1. One to One

2. One to Many

3. Many to One

4. Many to Many

1. One to One Relationship

When a single instance of an entity is associated with a single instance of another entity then it is called one to one relationship. For example, a person has only one passport and a passport is given to one person.

2. One to Many Relationship

When a single instance of an entity is associated with more than one instances of another entity then it is called one to many relationship. For example – a customer can place many orders but a order cannot be placed by many customers.

3. Many to One Relationship

When more than one instances of an entity is associated with a single instance of another entity then it is called many to one relationship. For example – many students can study in a single college but a student cannot study in many colleges at the same time.

4. Many to Many Relationship

When more than one instances of an entity is associated with more than one instances of another entity then it is called many to many relationship. For example, a can be assigned to many projects and a project can be assigned to many students.

Relational model in DBMS

In relational model, the data and relationships are represented by collection of inter-related tables. Each table is a group of column and rows, where column represents attribute of an entity and rows represents records.

Sample relationship Model: Student table with 3 columns and four records.

Table: Student

Here Stu_Id, Stu_Name & Stu_Age are attributes of table Student . The rows with values are the records (commonly known as tuples).

Hierarchical model in DBMS

In hierarchical model, data is organized into a tree like structure with each record is having one parent record and many children. The main drawback of this model is that, it can have only one to many relationships between nodes.

Note: Hierarchical models are rarely used now.

Sample Hierarchical Model Diagram:

Lets say we have few students and few courses and a course can be assigned to a single student only, however a student take any number of courses so this relationship becomes one to many.

ACID properties in DBMS

To ensure the integrity of data during a transaction (A transaction is a unit of program that updates various data items, read more about it here), the database system maintains the following properties. These properties are widely known as ACID properties:

Atomicity: This property ensures that either all the operations of a transaction reflect in database or none. Let’s take an example of banking system to understand this: Suppose Account A has a balance of 400$ & B has 700$. Account A is transferring 100$ to Account B. This is a transaction that has two operations a) Debiting 100$ from A’s balance b) Creating 100$ to B’s balance. Let’s say first operation passed successfully while second failed, in this case A’s balance would be 300$ while B would be having 700$ instead of 800$. This is unacceptable in a banking system. Either the transaction should fail without executing any of the operation or it should process both the operations. The Atomicity property ensures that.

Consistency: To preserve the consistency of database, the execution of transaction should take place in isolation (that means no other transaction should run concurrently when there is a transaction already running). For example account A is having a balance of 400$ and it is transferring 100$ to account B & C both. So we have two transactions here. Let’s say these transactions run concurrently and both the transactions read 400$ balance, in that case the final balance of A would be 300$ instead of 200$. This is wrong. If the transaction were to run in isolation then the second transaction would have read the correct balance 300$ (before debiting 100$) once the first transaction went successful.

Isolation: For every pair of transactions, one transaction should start execution only when the other finished execution. I have already discussed the example of Isolation in the Consistency property above.

Durability: Once a transaction completes successfully, the changes it has made into the database should be permanent even if there is a system failure. The recovery-management component of database systems ensures the durability of transaction.