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Decision Support Systems - Module I (6 ECTS): Decision Support Databases A.Y. 2023/24
This is the first module of Decision Support Systems (801AA, 12 ECTS), previously called Decision Support Databases (662AA, 6 ECTS).
The module presents the main approaches to the design and implementation of decision support databases, and the characteristics of business intelligence tools and computer based information systems used to produce summary information to facilitate appropriate decision-making processes and make them more quick and objectives. Specific attention will be paid to themes such as conceptual and logical Data Warehouses design, data analysis using analytic SQL, algorithms for selecting materialized views, data warehouse systems technology (indexes, star query optimization, physical design, query rewrite methods to use materialized views). A part of the course will be dedicated to a collection of case studies.
<html><!–<p style=“color:#FF0000”;><b>The server managing video-recordings and SQL Server is DOWN till Monday 23 November.</b></p>–></html>
Instructor
- Salvatore Ruggieri
- Università di Pisa
- Office hours: Tuesdays h 14:00 - 16:00 or by appointment, at the Department of Computer Science, room 321/DO, or via Teams.
Hours and rooms
| Day of Week | Hour | Room |
|---|---|---|
| Wednesday | 11:00 - 13:00 | Fib L1 |
| Thursday | 14:00 - 16:00 | Fib L1 |
A Teams channel is used ONLY to post news, Q&A, and other stuff related to the course. The lectures will be only in presence and will NOT be live-streamed, but recordings of the lecture or of the previous years will be made available here for non-attending students.
Mandatory teaching material
- [DW] A. Albano, S. Ruggieri. Decision Support Databases Essentials, University of Pisa, 21 December 2023.
- [DB] A. Albano. DB Essentials and solutions to exercises, University of Pisa, 1 December 2020. This is a self-contained excerpt (in English) from the book Fondamenti di basi di dati (in Italian, free download).
- Examples of written exams with solutions and written exam.
Software
- JRS for practicing with logical and physical SQL query plans. JRS requires Java SE Runtime Environment 8u341 (need to register to download)
- Azure Data Studio or SQL Server Management Studio client for connecting to SQL Server DBMS Foodmart database
- Access to University digital services through VPN connect to unipi VPN (unless you are already in the unipi.it network) for accessing the Foodmart database
Preliminary program and calendar
Exams
There are no mid-terms. The exam of Decision Support Systems (801AA, 12 ECTS) consists of a written part and an oral part on the topics of the first module (50% of the final grade), and a lab project with discussion on the topics of the second module (50% of the final grade). The written part consists of open questions, small exercises, and a Data Warehouse design problem. Each question is assigned a grade, summing up to 30 points. Students are admitted to the oral part if they receive a grade of at least 18 points. Oral consists of critical discussion of the written part and of open questions and problem solving on the topics of the course. See Module II: Laboratory of Data Science for the lab project. Module I and Module II must be passed at maximum distance of one year between them (they can be taken in any order).
Registration to the written exam is mandatory (pay attention at the deadline for registering!): register here
Please indicate in the notes “Only Lab” for doing only the discussion of the lab project; “Only DSD” for doing only the written+oral part of the DSD module; or “DSD+Lab” for doing both. The date reported below is for the DSD written exam. The actual date of the discussion of the lab project will be communicated to you by email.
| Date | Hour | Room | Notes |
|---|
Class calendar
Lessons will be NOT be live-streamed, but recordings of past years are available here for non-attending students.
Some of recordings and teaching material are password protected. Ask the teacher for credentials.
To watch the recordings online, you must be connected to the unipi.it VPN. Alternatively, right click on the link and download the whole file, then watch it locally on your device using e.g. VLC media player.
2023-01. Wednesday 20 September 2023, 11-13 [DW: 1.1-1.2] rec01 audio-video (.mp4) past years
Course overview. Need for Strategic Information. Information Systems in Organizations: Operational and Decision support. Data driven Decision support systems and Business Intelligence applications. From data to information for decision making. Types of data synthesis: Reports, Multidimensional data analysis, Exploratory data analysis.
2023-02. Thursday 21 September 2023, 14-16 [DW: 1.3-1.7] rec02 audio-video (.flv) past years
The data warehouse (DW) and DW architectures. What to model in a DW: Facts, measures, dimensions and dimensional hierarchies. Examples of data analysis. Exercises on data analysis in SQL.
2023-03. Wednesday 27 September 2023, 11-13 [DB: 1.1, 2.1-2.5] rec03 audio-video (.mp4) past years
Recalls: the Object Data Model. Exercises at home (Assignments I and II) for the lesson 2023-05.
2023-04. Thursday 28 September 2023, 14-16 [DW: 2.1] rec04 audio-video (.flv) past years
DW modeling. A conceptual multidimensional data model. Representation of Fact, measures, dimensions, attributes and dimensional hierarchies. Key steps in conceptual design from business questions. How to identify fact types and fact granularity and measure types. How to identify dimensions, dimensional attributes and hierarchies. Examples. Exercises at home (University exams) for the lesson 2023-05.
2023-05. Wednesday 4 October 2023, 11-13 [DW: 2.1, A.1] rec05 audio-video (.mp4) past years
The example of a data model for Master program exams. Presentation and discussion of the Hospital case study. Exercises at home (Assignment III) for the lesson 2023-07.
2023-06. Thursday 5 October 2023, 14-16 [DB: 3.1-3.2] rec06 audio-video (.mp4) past years
Recalls: the relational model and relational algebra. Exercises. Exercises at home (Assignment IV) for the lesson 2023-08.
2023-07. Wednesday 11 October 2023, 11-13[DW: 2.1, 2.2, A.1, B.1] rec07 audio-video (.mp4) past years
More about data mart conceptual design, changing dimensions and advanced data model features. From Conceptual design to relational logical design. Star model, snowflake, and constellation. Logical schema of the Hospital case study. Exercises at home (Travel agency) for the lesson 2023-09.
2023-08. Thursday 12 October 2023, 14-16 [DB: 3.2-3.4] rec08 audio-video (.mp4) past years
Recalls: the relational model and relational algebra. Logical trees. Exercises with JRS. Exercises at home (Airline companies) for the lesson 2023-09.
2023-09. Wednesday 18 October 2023, 11-13 [DW: A.2, B.2] rec09 audio-video (.mp4) past years
Discussion of students' solutions of conceptual and logical design case studies.
2023-10. Thursday 19 October 2023, 14-16 [DW: 3.1-3.5] rec10 audio-video (.mp4) past years
Data Warehouse design approaches. Data mart logical design.
2023-11. Tuesday 24 October 2022, 14-16, Room L1 [DW: 3.1-3.5] rec11 audio-video (.mp4) past years
Slowly changing dimensions, fast changing dimensions, shared dimensions. Recursive hierarchies. Multivalued dimensions. Exercises at home (Travel agency extended) for the lesson 2023-12.
2023-12. Thursday 2 November 2023, 14-16 [DW: 4.1-4.8] rec12 audio-video (.mp4) past years
A DW to support Analytical CRM Analysis. Wrap up on DW design. Exercises at home for the lesson 2023-14.
2023-13. Tuesday 7 November 2023, 14-16, Room L1 [DW: 2.3, 2.4] rec13a audio-video (.mp4) current year and rec13b audio-video (.mp4) past years
Multidimensional Cube model: OLAP Operations. The extended cube and the lattice of cuboids. Pivot tables in Excel.
Additional learning material: G. Harvey. Excel 2013 All-in-One For Dummies, 2013. Chp. VII-2 and example data for pivot table.
2023-14. Wednesday 8 November 2023, 11-13 [DB: 4.1-4.2,5.1-5.11] rec14 audio-video (.mp4) current year
Recalls on: DBMS, from SQL to extended relational algebra. Exercises. Exercises at home for the lesson 2023-15.
2023-15. Wednesday 15 November 2023, 11-36 [DW: 5.1-5.3] rec15 audio-video (.mp4) past years
OLAP systems. Data Analysis Using SQL. Simple reports. Examples. Moderately Difficult Reports. Solutions in SQL. Foodmart datawarehouse schema.
2023-16. Thursday 16 November 2023, 14-16 [DW: 5.4-5.5] rec16 audio-video (.mp4) past years
Examples of variance reports. Very Difficult Reports without Analytic SQL. Example of reports with ranks. Analytic Functions with the use of partitions and running totals. Examples. Exercises at home for the lesson 2023-17.
2023-17. Tuesday 21 November 2023, 14-16, Room L1 [DW: 5.5-5.6] rec17 audio-video (.mp4) past years
Analytic Functions with the use of moving windows. Examples. Exercises on Analytic SQL. Exercises during the lesson and at home and solutions.
2023-18. Wednesday 22 November 2023, 11-13 [DB: 6.1-6.6, 6.8, 7.1-7.2] rec18 audio-video (.mp4) past years
Recalls of relational DBMS internals: Storage, Indexing and Query Evaluation. Physical operators and physical plans for projection, selection, joins and grouping. Examples.
2023-19. Wednesday 29 November 2023, 11-13 [DW: 6.1-6.4] rec19 audio-video (.mp4) past years
Data Warehouse Systems: Special-Purpose Indexes and Star Query Plan. Bitmap indexes. Join indexes. Star queries optimization and query plans. Examples. Table partitioning.
2023-19 bis. Thursday 30 November 2023, 14-16, Room Seminari Est at the Computer Science Dept. [DW: 6.5-6.8] rec24 audio-video (.mp4) past years
For attending students: Seminar (in Italian): Sistema per l’analisi di dati statici di supporto alle decisioni (V. Minei and R. Mosca, Sadas s.r.l.)
For non-attending students: Data Warehousing trends: column-oriented DW, main-memory DW, Big Data framework. (see recorded lesson from past years).
2023-20. Wednesday 6 December 2023, 11-13 [DW: 7.1-7.7]rec20 audio-video (.mp4) past years
The problem of materialized views selection. The lattice of views and the greedy algorithm HRU for the selection of materialized views. Examples. Other algorithms for the choice of the views to materialize with a workload and dimensional hierarchies. Exercises at home for the lesson 2023-21.
2023-21. Thursday 7 December 2023, 14-16 [DW: 8.1-8.2, DB: 3.5.1-3.5.4] rec21 audio-video (.mp4) past years
Recalls of functional dependency properties and how they are used to reason about the properties of the result of a query. Properties of the group-by operator.
2023-22. Monday 11 December 2023, 14-16, Room M1 [DW: 8.3-8.6] rec22 audio-video (.mp4) past years
The problem of evaluating the group-by before the join operator. First case: Invariant grouping. Examples. Other cases: double grouping, grouping and counting. Examples with star queries.
2023-23. Wednesday 13 December 2023, 11-13, Room M1 [DW: 9.1-9.4] rec23 audio-video (.mp4) past years
The problem of query rewrite to use a materialized view. Hypothesis and two approaches: With a compensation on the logical view plan, and with a transformation of logical query plan. Examples.