Data processing: database and file management or data structures – Database design – Data structure types
Reexamination Certificate
1999-08-13
2002-04-16
Breene, John (Department: 2177)
Data processing: database and file management or data structures
Database design
Data structure types
C203S014000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06374267
ABSTRACT:
CROSS-REFERENCES TO RELATED APPLICATIONS
This application is related to a co-pending application, U.S. Ser. No. 09/374,351 entitled “Multi-Processor System for Data Base Management”, and to a co-pending application, U.S. Ser. No. 09/374,351 entitled “Enhanced System and Method for Management of System Database Utilities” which are incorporated herein by reference.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
In the operation of computer systems and networks, the computer data is often “backed-up”, that is to say, it is copied to a storage medium other than the central computer's storage disk in order to permit the recovery of the data as the data existed at some point in time. This is done for purposes of diagnosis in the event of system failure or inadvertent loss of data.
It is often a standard practice to automatically back-up data on a daily or other periodic basis and store this data on tape or disk.
There are several ways to back-up data for diagnostic and recovery purposes. One way is considered as (i) physical level back-up. The physical level back-up refers to the data as it is stored at specific locations on some physical media, such as a host computer disk.
Another way is (ii) designated logical level back-up. This refers to the data as seen by the user application programs in files or in database tables. Normally, the operating system of the computer will include a file system that does mapping between the physical level and the logical level. On doing the physical level back-up, this would involve making a raw copy from a computer disk to some other storage medium without going through the file system or some other physical to logical interpreter module. Then on the other hand, the back-up using the logical level would involve using such a thing as an interpreter module or some sort of a file system while doing back-up of physical to logical mapping.
A Database Management System consists of a set of tools used to develop and manage a database. The present system utilizes a DMSII which is a Database Management System available on the Unisys Corporation's ClearPath HMP NX, and the Unisys A-Series systems. A background for the Unisys DMSII systems is available in a publication of the Unisys Corporation, Document 8807 6625 000, entitled “
Getting Started With DMSII
” and published in September, 1997 by the Unisys Corporation. The DMSII Utilities provide database back-up and recovery capability for the entire database or for partial databases. The background operations of the DMSII utility enhancements are published in a Unisys Corporation publication Document 98037/4 and entitled “
DMSII Utility Enhancements
” published on Mar. 31, 1999.
Database back-ups can be accomplished for “on-line” and “off-line” bases. The on-line back-up will allow users to update data in the database, whereas the off-line back-up disallows all updates to the database. The back-ups can be done to either tapes or disks or any combination of both types of such media.
Database Management Systems are used by many large and small businesses such as airline reservation systems, financial institutions, retail chains, insurance companies, utility companies and government agencies. The present Database Management System (DMS) in its form as DMSII is used to build database structures for items of data according to some appropriate logical model, such as relational, hierarchical, or network. Further, the Database management System is used to manage the database structures and keep the structures in some stable order while various application programs may be retrieving or changing the data. The present embodiment of DMSII has a data definition language designated as Data And Structure Definition Language (DASDL).
There are various tasks that are performed in database management and these involve (i) monitoring and optimizing database performance; (ii) the use of database control for monitoring multi-program database access; (iii) the function of the data integrity and safety done by integrity checking and preventing access to the same data by multiple applications occurring at the same time; (iv) the function of defining data structures and the data fields within them, including the function of modifying data structures; (v) data access operations and developing an application program to retrieve data or to change data; (vi) the function of data shareability to provide multi-program access without conflicts and provide database definitions to the application program; (vii) in database and data security, to prevent unauthorized database access; (viii) ensuring independence of application programs from certain data changes and preventing the revision of application programs every time a structure changes; (ix) in database and data recovery, performing the resumption of database operations after an interruption; (x) tracking data changes by keeping a record of every change made to the data; (xi) for data change integrity, ensuring that update changes are applied to, or removed from, the database in their entirety; (xii) providing a recent copy of the database as a reserve by backing-up the database and storing copies of audit files and all other database files; (xiii) providing for database scaleability by growing or shrinking the database according to the ongoing needs at the time.
The DMSII provides standard software files that perform services and operations for all the databases connected to the system's Enterprise Server. This enables a viewing of a list of all these files on the user terminal.
In the ordinary course of operations, the application program user will submit changes to data or retrieve data while running a particular application program. Then, changes can be made which add, modify and delete data. A Database Administrator (DBA) keeps the database running smoothly and enforces the rules for data integrity and security. Users access the database through a given application program which itself does not access the data directly. Instead, the program interacts with the DMSII software and the database tailored software, which is directed by the access routines of the Data Management System to provide accesses, retrievals and the storage of data in the physical database file.
In regard to access, an application user will access the data in order to (i) make an inquiry to get a Read of data in the database, or (ii) to provide an update by doing a write to the database thus, adding, deleting or changing data. The access for either purpose contributes to an operation on the database which is called a “transaction”.
A transaction is a sequence of operations grouped by a user program because the operations constitute a single logical change to the database, At the end and finality of the transaction point, the transaction is complete and without error, and it is considered as being committed to the database.
Actual real world data goes into special logical structures that are used by the Data Management System to store data. The database is designed to map categories of data into suitable structures. For example, the real world data would have a character with a structure called a “data set”. An example of this would be a particular person's name. Then, real world data that can serve as an index of a whole data set has a structured name called a “set”. This, for example, might be the social security number of any employee. Then there is data that can serve as an index of a data set under a certain condition, and this is called a “subset”. This might be an employee's work number, for example. Then, there is data about each instance of a particular category. The structure name for this is “data item”. An example of this might be the name and address of the category (person). Then, there is data related to the database as a whole, and this involves a structure called “global data item”. An example of this might be the total number of employees in a company. Once there has been identification of the real-world data which is to be stored in the database, it is then necessary to define that data
Kozak Alfred W.
Le Debbie M
Rode Lise A.
Starr Mark T.
Unisys Corporation
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