6.830/6.814: Database Systems
Spring 2012
News Schedule Psets/Quizzes/Labs Class notes Syllabus FAQ
Units: 3-0-9 (H)
When: MW 2:30-4:00
Where: 32-155
Instructors: Sam Madden (madden AT csail.mit.edu)
Michael Stonebraker (stonebraker AT csail.mit.edu)

Staff mailing list: 		6830-staff AT nms.csail.mit.edu
Instructor office hours: by appointment
TAs: Nirmesh Malviya (nirmesh AT mit.edu)
Usman Masood (usmanm AT mit.edu)
TA office hours : Monday 4pm-5pm (Nirmesh)
Thursday 7pm-8pm (Usman)
TA office hours where: 32-G9 Lounge (right out of the elevators)
Please post questions or comments to Piazza
6.830 Announcements

6.830 Announcements

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05/10/12: Final project presentations
In lieu of in-class presentations, we will have a poster session on Wednesday, May 16. The poster session will be in 32-G449 (Kiva) and the space in front, starting at 2:30 (the usual class time). We will provide poster boards and easels, as well as pins / tape to mount posters to boards. You are welcome to prepare a fancy, large-format poster (our boards will accommodate at least 24" x 36" posters), but may also simply print out 6--9 8.5 x 11" PowerPoint slides and mount them on the board. Your posters should describe (briefly) the problem you addressed, your solution, and highlight a key result or two. The goal isn't to convey the complete story of your work but to provide a visual aid for use in talking through your work to the course staff and other students.

We will visit every poster, and spend exactly five minutes listening to your "pitch", so prepare carefully. If you have a demo, we would love to see what you built! We will publish a schedule of the order in which we plan to visit projects on Monday. The poster session will likely run a few minutes past the normal end of class; if we schedule you for a slot that you cannot attend we will adjust the schedule to accommodate you.

Poster materials will be available starting around 2PM if you would like to prepare early. We will also provide pizza.

05/09/12: Problem Set 3 solutions

Solutions to Problem set 3 have been posted on the homeworks page.

05/04/12: Sample Quiz 2

A Sample Quiz 2 and Solutions have been posted.

As with Quiz 1, Quiz 2 will be open book and open computer, but no Internet will be allowed.

05/04/12: Prof Madden Office Hours

Professor Madden will have office hours on Monday at 4PM and Tuesday at 5PM in his office, 32-G938.

05/02/12: Lab 5

Lab 5 is posted. It is due Thursday, May 17. Only students taking 6.814 need to turn in this lab.

04/25/12: Estimating Your Performance So Far In 6.814/6.830

We've posted a PHP script that allows you to estimate your performance so far in the class by plugging in the grades you've received thus far and comparing your performance against the class median.

The script for 6.814 is here.

The script for 6.830 is here.

You should be able to get current scores for Lab 1, Lab 2, PS1, PS2, and Quiz 1 from Stellar. We will post Lab 3 grades later tonight.

04/24/12: Notes on Translating Pig Programs to Map Reduce Jobs

We've posted an addendum to Monday's lecture on how Pig programs get translated into Map Reduce jobs here.

04/11/12: Problem Set 2 solutions

Solutions to Problem set 2 have been posted on the homeworks page.

04/11/12: Lab 4

Lab 4 is posted. It is due Monday, April 30. Only students taking 6.814 need to turn in this lab.

04/06/12: Problem Set 3

Problem Set 3 is posted. It is due Monday, May 7.

04/05/12: 6.830 Final Project Signup Take 2

6.830 students should sign up for a meeting with Professor Madden to discuss progress on their final projects. Only one team member per group should sign up. Slots are distributed over several weeks -- if you need feedback soon or have already made a lot of progress, please meet sooner. Otherwise, sign up for a slot in a couple of weeks when you will have something to talk about. Each slot is 20 minutes. If none of these times work for you, please contact Professor Madden about an alternate meeting time.

04/02/12: Quiz 1 solutions

Quiz 1 solutions have been posted.

03/25/12: Lab 3

Lab 3 is posted. It is due Monday, April 9.

03/17/12: Quiz 1 Open Notes, with Laptops

Quiz 1 is on Wednesday, 3/21, during class. The quiz will be open notes, and you may bring a laptop. We will require that you disable wireless on your laptop, and you will not be permitted to use a web browser, so please load all of the notes, documents, etc onto it before the exam. Mobile phones may not be used.

03/17/12: Professor Madden Office Hours

Professor Madden will have pre-exam office hours from 3--4 PM and 5--6 PM on Tuesday 3/20, in his office, 32-G938.

03/12/12: Lab 2 Review Session

We'll be having two review sessions for Lab 2 this week. The first on Monday 3/12 at 5:30pm in 32-D463 and the second on Tuesday 3/13 at 6:30pm in 32-G882. These review sessions are being held in place of the regular office hours, so we won't be holding any office hours on Monday or Thursday. We'll be going over SimpleDB components that need to be implemented for lab 2. We expect these review sessions to be shorter compared to those for lab1, and the remaining time will be spent on any questions/bugs that you guys might have.

03/09/12: Problem Set 1 solutions

Solutions to problem set 1 have been posted on the homeworks page.

03/07/12: Sample Quiz 1

A Sample Quiz 1 and Solutions have been posted

03/05/12: 6.830 Final Project Signup

6.830 students should sign up (corrected URL) for a meeting with Professor Madden to discuss their final project ideas. Meetings are on Thursday and Friday of this week, and last 20 minutes. Each group should sign up for just one slot. If you can't find a time that works for you, please email Professor Madden.

03/02/12: Lab 2

Lab 2 is posted. It is due Friday, March 16.

03/02/12: 6.830 Final Project Description and Sample Projects

A description of the final project and some sample project ideas are posted. The project proposal is due March 14, and the final project is due May 17.

02/27/12: Problem Set 2

Problem Set 2 is posted. It is due Monday, March 19.

02/26/12: Lab 1 Review Session

We'll be having two review sessions for Lab 1 this week. The first on Monday 7:00pm-8:00pm and the second on Tuesday 6:30pm-7:30pm. Both review sessions will be held in 32-G449 (Kiva). These review sessions are being held in place of the regular office hours, so we won't be holding any office hours on Thursday night. In the review sessions, we'll be going over architectural details of SimpleDB and physical layout of data in databases. The remaining time will be spent on any questions/bugs that you guys might have.

02/23/12: Bug in Lab 1

There is a bug in Lab 1, where the name of a method is misleading. isSlotFree() in HeapPage should instead be called isSlotUsed() (as the specification suggests). If you haven't started the lab yet, you can simply download the tarball again which includes the necessary changes.

If you have started the lab, you download and apply a patch to fix this bug. Download the patch from http://db.csail.mit.edu/6.830/assignments/lab1.patch and copy it to the top level for your 6.830-lab1 directory. Then open up a shell, change your working directory to the top level of your 6.830-lab1 directory and run "patch -p1 < lab1.patch".

Alternatively, you can manually make the required changes. Do a string search for "isSlotFree" and replace it with "isSlotUsed" in files src/simpledb/HeapPage.java, test/simpledb/HeapFileReadTest.java and test/simpledb/HeapPageReadTest.java.

If you have any problems, come to OH today or post a question on Piazza.

02/21/12: Lab 1

Lab 1 is posted. It is due Friday, March 2.

02/19/12: Avoid linerva.mit.edu

We received a complaint from the owners of linerva.mit.edu today that 6.814/6.830 sqlite jobs were making the machine unusable.

The issue is that long running queries use 100% of the CPU on the machine, and when several of you log in and run queries and leave them running for a long time, it can make the machine very slow.

Therefore, we ask that you respect the following guidelines:

  1. Please try to use a machine other than linerva or one of the athena.dialup machines if at all possible. The best would be if you have a personal linux or mac machine to download the database and run locally. Otherwise, visit an athena cluster if you have one near you.
  2. No query should take longer than 5 minutes to run. Please kill your queries that run longer than 5 minutes by typing "Ctrl-C" to abort them and find a way to rephrase your query. Please contact us if you need help figuring out what is wrong with your query.
If you are unable to find another machine please contact us and we will try to find a machine for you to run on.

Sorry for any inconvenience this may cause you.

02/13/12: Problem Set 1

Problem Set 1 is posted. It is due Tuesday, February 21.

02/08/12: Accessing "Readings in Database Systems" Online

Many of the readings from this class will come from the book "Readings in Database Systems" (aka the "Red Book"). You can access this book online, from books 24x7.com, as long as you have an MIT account. To do this:

02/06/12: First Class

The first class will be Wednesday, February 8, 2012, at 2:30 PM in 32-155. See you there! We will post announcements for the class on this page; subscribe to the RSS Feed for updates.

02/01/12: Piazza

For online discussions, questions, and feedback this semester, we are going to be using Piazza (an online discussion forum). Please sign up here.

02/01/12: Welcome to 6.814/830!

The syllabus and schedule are now available.

Description

This course relies on primary readings from the database community to introduce graduate students to the foundations of database systems, focusing on basics such as the relational algebra and data model, schema normalization, query optimization, and transactions. It is designed for students who have taken 6.033 (or equivalent); no prior database experience is assumed though students who have taken an undergraduate course in databases are encouraged to attend.

Classes consist of lectures and discussions based on readings from the database literature. Grades in 6.830 are assigned based on a semester long project, as well as two exams and 7 assignments -- 3 labs and 4 problem sets -- of varying length. Grades in 6.814 are based on the same quizzes and assigments as 6.830, except that students may opt to do 2 additional labs in place of the final project. For more information about the readings and assignments, use the links at the top of the page.

Last change: 2/1/2012.

Questions or comments regarding 6.830/6.814? Send e-mail to the 6.830/6.814 staff at .