CS632: Advanced Database Systems

Spring 2003

TR 2:55-4:10 Thurston 203

Announcements

7 May: Part C (the last part) of the final exam is here.

6 May: When is the final due? Well, technically the final for this course is scheduled on 9 May (!), but I promised a week, so it is due on (7+7) May = 14 May.

6 May: Part B of the final exam is here. Note the additional part in Question 1.

5 May: Part B of the final exam will show up tomorrow AM, promise.

2 May: Part A of the final exam is here.

2 May: A couple of references from last time: Probabilistic Counting and Tracking Join Sizes.

24 April: A nice Query Optimization survey here. (This material also in Ch 12-15 of Ramakrishnan & Gehrke). You may prefer this (which I don't like so much). See also this (how to get the information that drives the optimizer).

17 April: The ARIES paper is here.

3 April: I think the Problem 2c issue was a false alarm -- the problem is okay (except for the typo where it should read 'i >= 1' not 'i = 1').

3 April: Finally, prelim part b is here.

28 March: At last, the prelim is here.

26 Feb: I am still falling behind, but more notes are available here.

20 Feb: The threatened problem set is available here.

13 Feb: Class today will not begin until 3:30. More lecture notes are available here.

Contact Information

Alan Demers (ademers@cs.cornell.edu), 4115 Upson, office hours TBA

Course Overview

CS632 is an advanced course in database systems aimed primarily at Ph.D. students. In the early part of the course we focus on "classical" relational database fundamentals, giving a more rigorous/theoretical treatment than CS432, with more reliance on original sources (Note CS432, or equivalent, is a prerequisite for CS632). We then discuss a collection of research papers, including some "seminal" papers from the early days of relational databases as well as some more recent papers that have influenced the field or represent current research directions. By the end of the course, you should understand the state of the art in database systems.

Tentative Course Outline

Look here.

Requirements and Grading

Required

A take-home prelim (30%).
A take-home final exam (40%).
A couple of "advanced" problem sets, whose solutions may involve additional reading and research (30%).

Suggested

You are expected to do the assigned reading before each lecture.
From time to time I shall suggest easy exercises to help you test your understanding.
I have no way to test either of these.

Presentations

Students are not required to present any of the papers we cover (this is a departure from past practice). But I welcome volunteer presentations. This is based on the philosophy that a presentation should be a labor of love. It is also great practice for conference presentations and job talks.

Projects

No project is required (this is another departure from past practice). I am willing to negotiate this, however: we might invent interesting individual or group projects that we could trade off against problem sets; ideally producing some publishable result.