6.830: Lecture 1 (09/09/09)

This lecture will introduce relational database systems, contrast them with other approach for storing and modeling data, and introduce at a high level the core ideas behind databases, namely:

• The relational model, algebra, and declarative query languages.
• Query optimization and planning
• Transactions and database recovery

Given these high level ideas, we will look in some detail at the architecture of a database system, discussing each of the components that we will study throughout the semester.

There is no reading assigned for this lecture.