Database: Review for Final Exam

These web lecture notes include a review for Exam 1.

There is a review web page for Exam 2 to be found here.

There is a review web page for Exam 3 to be found here.

Expect questions related to the Query and Headless Books projects.

Since Exam 3, we have dealt with topics indicated below.

Reliability & Security

• Know the kinds of failures that necessitate backup plans.
• Understand the distinction between backups and checkpoints, and how they can be used together for recovery.
• Understand the concept of transaction logging and how it is used in this context.
• Do not be concerned about the variations of recovery (via reprocessing, roll forward, roll back.
• Skip over 15.1.6 & 15.6.7.
• Understand the intro to 15.2, as well as 15.2.1 & 15.2.2.
• Omit 15.2.3 on database audits.
• Be prepared on 15.3 -- stored procedures & functions
• Skip 15.4 on distributed databases.

Client-Server Databases and WWW

• 8.1.1: Client-Server Architctures. Be familiar with the three-tiered architecture and the concepts involved. Be familiar with the ideas shown in Figures 8.1-2.
• 8.1.2: Interaction with Access. The Microsoft alternatives -- GUIs supported by VBA, with form bound to attributes; Microsoft Jet and ODBC. (We have a document on ODBC, linked to from the Web notes.)
• 8.1.3: JDBC from Sun; the inclusion of java.sql
• 8.1.4: Embedded SQL, how it works, advantages, disadvantages vis a vis ODBC/JDBC.
• 8.2 JDBC Packages. The interfaces -- Driver, Connection, DatabaseMetaData, Statement, ResultSet, ResultSetMetaData. Strategies for use.
• 8.3 - 8.5: Skip these for purposes of the exam.
• 8.6: Be familiar with the SQLFilter class that is discussed here.
• 8.7 - 8.10: Skip these for purposes of the exam.

Objects and Database Management Systems