INFO-H-415: Advanced Databases

• Esteban Zimányi (ezimanyi@ulb.ac.be)

• Stefan Eppe (stefan.eppe@ulb.ac.be)

• Theory 24 h - Exercises 24h - Project 12h
• 5 ECTS credits

• Master in Computer Science and Engineering [MA-IRIF]
• Master in Computer Sciences [INFO]
• Erasmus Mundus Master in Information Technologies for Business Intelligence (IT4BI)

The course is given during the first semester on Mondays and Tuesdays from 12 pm to 2 pm.

Schedule (rev.1 - 2013.10-26)

Today, databases are moving away from typical management applications, and address new application areas. For this, databases must consider (1) recent developments in computer technology, as the object paradigm and distribution, and (2) management of new data types such as spatial or temporal data. This course introduces the concepts and techniques of some innovative database applications.

Taxonomy of concepts. Applications of active databases: integrity maintenance, derived data, replication. Design of active databases: termination, confluence, determinism, modularisation.

Temporal data and applications. Time ontology. Conceptual modeling of temporal aspects. Manipulation of temporal data with standard SQL.

Object-oriented model. Object Persistance. ODMG standard: Object Definition Language and Object Query Language.

Spatial data and applications. Space ontology. Conceptual modeling of spatial aspects. Manipulation of spatial data with standard SQL.

The Datalog langage. Translation of Datalog into relational algebra. Bottom-up semantics. Top-down semantics. Recursive views in standard SQL.

The XQuery language. Basis of the language. Base expressions. XPath expressions. New attributes and elements. FLWOR expressions. Ordering and grouping. Functions. Updates.

• C. Zaniolo et al., Advanced Database Systems, Morgan Kaufmann, 1997
• R.T. Snodgrass, Developing Time-Oriented Database Applications in SQL, Morgan Kaufmann, 2000 (version pdf)
• R.G.G. Cattel et al., The Object Database Standard: ODMG 3.0, Morgan Kaufmann, 2000
• Jim Melton and Alan R. Simon, SQL: 1999 - Understanding Relational Language Components, Morgan Kaufmann, 2001
• Jim Melton, Advanced SQL: 1999 - Understanding Object-Relational and Other Advanced Features, Morgan Kaufmann, 2002
• Philippe Rigaux, Michel Scholl, Agnès Voisard, Spatial Databases: With Application to GIS, Morgan Kaufmann, 2001
• Priscilla Walmsley, XQuery, O'Reilly, 2007
• Jim Melton, Stephen Buxton, Querying XML: XQuery, XPath, and SQL/XML in context, Morgan Kaufmann, 2006

• S. Ceri, P. Fraternali, Designing Database Applications with Object and Rules: The IDEA Methodology, Addison Wesley, 1997
• R.T. Snodgrass, The TSQL2 Temporal Query Language, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1995
• R.M. Colomb, Deductive Databases and their Applications, Taylor & Francis, 1998

• Norman W. Paton, Oscar Díaz, Active Database Systems, ACM Computer Surveys, 31(1): 63-103, 1999. (version pdf)
• Jennifer Widom, The Starbust Active Database Rule System, IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering, 8(4): 583-595 1996 (version pdf)
• E. Zimányi, Temporal Aggregates and Temporal Universal Quantifiers in Standard SQL, SIGMOD Record, 35(2):16-21, 2006. (version pdf)

• Temporal databases
  • TimeCenter, an international research centre for temporal databases.
  • TimeDB, a temporal relational database
• Object databases
  • ODBMS.ORG, portal of ressources about object databases.
  • db4o, an open source object database.
  • ObjectStore, an object database
  • Objectivity, an object database
  • Versant, an object database
  • Jade, an object database
  • Ozone, an object database
• Post-relationnal databases
  • Matisse
  • Caché
• NoSQL Databases
  • A list of distributed key-value stores
  • NoSQL Patterns
  • MongoDB
  • HBase
  • Project Voldermort

• Active databases
• Temporal databases
• Object databases
• Spatial databases
• Deductive databases
• XML databases
• NoSQL databases
• Multidimensional databases

• Exercices Web page

Students, in groups of two, will realize a project in a topic relevant to advanced databases. Examples of topics are:

• Active databases
• Temporal databases
• Deductive databases
• Object databases
• Object-relational databases
• Spatial databases
• Multimedia databases
• Distributed databases
• Semi-structured or XML databases
• Grid databases
• Cloud databases
• NoSQL databases: HyperTable, Cassandra, ….
• Object persistance: Hibernate, Java Data Objects, …

Each group will study a database technology and illustrate it with an application developed ​​in a database management system to be chosen (e.g., Oracle, PostgreSQL, DB2, SQL Server, mySQL, etc..). The topic should be addressed in a technical way, to explain the underlying technologies. The application must use the specific technology manipulated.

The choice of topic and the application must be made ​​in agreement with the lecturer. The topic should not be included in the programme of the Master in Computer Science and Engineering. The project will be presented to the lecturer and the fellow students at the end of the semester. This presentation will be supported by a slideshow. A written report containing the contents of the presentation is also required. The presentation and written report will explain the possibilities offered by the database management system chosen and give a general description of the application implemented.

The evaluation of the project focuses on the following criteria:

• Quality of the presentation,
• Master of the topic presented, and
• Quality of written report.

The project will count for 25% of the final grade.

Topics chosen for this academic year:

• Deductive Databases and XSB: Kofi Manful
• Object-Relational Databases and Cache: Varunya Thavornun and Sehrish Ijaz Ansari
• Graph Databases and OrientDB: Jan Maushagen and Ondřej Svoboda
• Graph Databases and Neo4J: Maximiliano Ariel López and Miruna Mironescu
• Java Data Objects: Martin Bogaert and Gaspar Feron
• CouchDB: Alexey Grigorev and Irina Kameniar
• Distributed databases with SQL Server: Hung Chang and Qingyi Zhu
• Object-oriented databases and db4o: Sergi Nadal and David Gràcia
• XML databases: Igor Shevchenko and Elena Samota
• Google cloud SQL and BigQuery: Jake Edwards and Nyami Ronald
• Microsoft Azure: Oky Purwantiningsih and Poly Muriithi
• Spatial databases with SQL Server: Andrés Zamora and Rizkallah Touma
• MongoDB: Tammara Mendt and Ricardo Ruvalcaba
• Cassandra: Amit Arun Pawar and Manash Sarker
• Apache Hbase (Hadoop implementation): Ricardo Pettine and Karim Wadie
• Temporal databases: Redioni Karakashi and Anil Pala
• Hibernate: Aurélien Plisnier

• Academic year 2008-2009
  • First session
• Academic year 2007-2008
  • First session
• Academic year 2006-2007
  • First session
• Academic year 2002-2003
  • First session
• Academic year 2001-2002
  • First session
  • Second session
• Academic year 2000-2001
  • First session
  • Second session