Fundamentals of Database Management Systems, Second Edition

PREFACE

PURPOSE OF THIS BOOK

A course in database management has become well established as a required course in both undergraduate and graduate management information systems degree programs. This is as it should be, considering the central position of the database field in the information systems environment. Indeed, a solid understanding of the fundamentals of database management is crucial for success in the information systems field. An IS professional should be able to talk to the users in a business setting, ask the right questions about the nature of their entities, their attributes, and the relationships among them, and quickly decide whether their existing data and database designs are properly structured or not. An IS professional should be able to design new databases with confidence that they will serve their owners and users well. An IS professional should be able to guide a company in the best use of the various database-related technologies.

Over the years, at the same time that database management has increased in importance, it has also increased tremendously in breadth. In addition to such fundamental topics as data modeling, relational database concepts, logical and physical database design, and SQL, a basic set of database topics today includes object-oriented databases, data administration, data security, distributed databases, data warehousing, and Web databases, among others. The dilemma faced by database instructors and by database books is to cover as ...