CS460 Course Description

CS460 is an undergraduate introduction to the principles of the relational database management systems (DBMSs). The goal of the course is to introduce students to the main issues on the design and implementation of a database system and to present how a system like that can be used effectively. Major topics of this course include:

Query Languages (SQL, Relational Algebra)
Storage and Indexing
Query Optimization
ER and Relational Data Models
Database Design
Concurrency Control and Recovery

In addition, we will cover some modern data management approaches, including Big Data and NoSQL databases and data management in the Cloud.

CS660 Course Description

CS660 is a graduate introduction to the database management systems (DBMSs). Students must attend the CS460 lectures. Furthermore, students in CS660 will attend and participate in extra lectures and some selective database seminars.

Instructor

Prof. George Kollios, Email: gkollios@cs.bu.edu
Office: MCS 283
Office Hours: Monday 2:30pm - 4:00pm and Tuesday 1:00pm - 2:30pm, or anytime I am in my office
Phone: 617-358-891835

Teaching Fellows

Mona Jalal, Email: jalal@bu.edu
Office Hours: Tuesday/Thursday 2:00 pm - 3:15 pm and Friday 3:45-5:15 pm

Baichuan Zhou, Email: baichuan@bu.edu
Office Hours: Wednesday/Thursday 2:30pm - 4:30 pm

Required Textbook

Raghu Ramakrishnan and Johannes Gehrke, "Database Management Systems", McGraw-Hill, Third Edition. 2002.

Workload

Four or five written assignments
Three programming assignments
Two exams; one midterm and one final

Prerequisites

Very good programming skills and knowledge of basic data structures (e.g., CS 112).

Important Dates:

Last day to drop the class without a W grade is Tue 10/10/17
Last day to drop the class with a W grade is Fri 11/10/17

Exams

Midterm: Mon, Oct 23, 2017 (tentative) (in class)
Final: Thu, Dec 21, 2017.

Lectures

Mon/Wed 4:30-5:45pm in LSE B01