Assignment 9: April 28 through May 1

For Lecture: Monday, April 28th

In preparation for this lecture on Transactions, read sections A and B of Chapter 8 of the course notes.

For Recitation: Tuesday, April 29th

Today's written assignment is a one-pager summarizing your design for DP2
A one-pager on System R is assigned for Thursday.

For Lecture: Wednesday, April 30th

In today's lecture we will continue with Transactions.  Please read section C and D of Chapter 8 of the course notes.

For Recitation: Thursday, May 1st

Read "The Recovery Manager of the System R Database Manager," by Gray et al. (Reading #19). Chapter 8, Appendix C of the course notes provides a helpful guide for understanding System R.

For recitation, answer the following question about System R in a one-page paper:

The designers of System R state that "System R can tolerate any single failure and can often tolerate multiple failures." (pg. 227) Give an example of a tolerable failure and an intolerable failure. For the tolerable example, describe one or two key mechanisms which allow System R to recover a consistent view of the database. For the intolerable example, which may be a single event or a combination of events, explain why System R's recovery mechanisms are not effective.

System aphorism of the week

An engineer is a person who can do for a dime what any fool can do for a dollar. (Anonymous)