Course contents: Architecture of database systems. Disks and files (memory hierarchy, RAID, file organization – heap/ordered/hash/clustered files). System catalogs and record storage. Tree-structured (ISAM, B-trees, B+ trees) and hash-based (static/extendible/linear) indexing. Query processing and optimization (selection, projection, join, groupby). Transaction processing and management (schedules and serializability). Concurrency control and crash recovery. Parallel and distributed databases. Special types of databases.

Assessment: The course grade will be based on programming projects (possibly involving a personal examination) and/or exercises (in-class or homework) that will jointly account for 50% of the final grade, and a 3-hour written examination that will account for the remaining 50% of the final grade. These percentages may vary (+/-10%) each year. To succeed in this course, a mark of 5 or higher is required in the written exam and in the final grade.