• What's this Course about?
• Syllabus
• Exam
• Before the exam ...
• At the start of the exam ...
• During the exam ...
• What's on the Exam?
• Exam Structure
• Special Consideration
• Revision
• And that's all folks ...

❖ What's this Course about?

Understanding how relational DBMSs work ...

❖ Syllabus

View of DBMS internals from the bottom-up:

• storage subsystem (disks,pages)
• buffer manager, representation of data
• processing RA operations (sel,proj,join,...)
• combining RA operations (iterators/execution)
• query translation, optimization, execution
• transactions, concurrency, durability

❖ Exam

Monday 3 May, 2pm - 8pm AEST

Let me know ASAP if you are in an unusual time zone (e.g. Europe) or have an evening exam

Held in the comfort of your own home.

All answers are typed and submitted on-line.

Environments:  VLab  or  ssh  or  putty  or  work locally

Learn to use the shell, a text editor and on-screen calculator.

❖ Exam (cont)

Resources available during exam:

• exam questions   (collection of web pages)
• program directories and question templates   (exam.zip)
• PostgreSQL manual   (collection of web pages)
• C programming reference   (collection of web pages)
• Course web site   (all, including submission pages)

And you can access the whole of the Internet.

Except, do not communicate with anyone else.

❖ Exam (cont)

Tools available during the exam on the CSE servers

• C compiler   (gcc, make)
• text editors   (e.g. vim, emacs, gedit, ...)
• code editor   (e.g. code)
• on-screen calculators   (e.g. bc, gcalctool, xcalc)
• all your favourite Linux tools   (e.g. ls, grep, ...)
• Linux manual   (man)

Answers are submitted either via give or Webcms3

❖ Exam (cont)

Minimal tool set to work at home during the exam

• C compiler   (gcc, make)
• text editors   (vim, emacs, gedit, nedit, nano, ...)
• a calculator   (bc, gcalctool, xcalc)

❖ Before the exam ...

Practice with the Sample Exam

Use VLab

• especially if you haven't used it during term

or

Set up a working environment on your computer

• need a C compiler (+ make), and text editor
• learn how to use scp, ssh, the Unix shell
  • scp can be replaced by any file-transfer tool
  • ssh can be replaced by putty

❖ At the start of the exam ...

Read the Instructions page   (see Sample Exam)

Make an exam working directory   (either on VLab or home machine)

Unzip exam.zip in that directory

Optionally, if working at home, unzip paper.zip into another directory

Read the exam font cover and the questions

Plan which questions to answer first

Go!

❖ During the exam ...

Do not spend more than 45 mins on any question.

• if stuck submit what you've got, do other questions, return to this one later

If you need clarification on some question

• send email to cs9315@cse.unsw.edu.au
• email will be monitored for duration of exam

If we need to change/correct an exam question

• we will change the version on the CSE servers
• we will post a Notice on the Webcms3 site
  (for people working on a downloaded copy of the exam paper)

You can submit multiple times;   last submission is marked

❖ During the exam ... (cont)

If there are technical difficulties with the CSE servers/Webcms3

• send email to alert us
• we will attempt to fix with 30 mins

If you have technical difficulties with your machine

• try to fix (e.g. reboot) and email us (with photo) if long delay

❖ What's on the Exam?

Potential topics to be examined: anything under "Videos and Slides"

Questions will have the following "flavours" ...

• write a small C program to do V
• describe what happens when we execute method W
• how many page accesses occur if we do X on Y
• explain the numbers in the following output
• describe the characteristics of Z

There will be no SQL/PLpgSQL code writing.

You will not have to modify PostgreSQL during the exam.

❖ Exam Structure

There will be 8 questions

• 3 x C programming questions (60%, ~2 hours)
• 5 x written answer questions (40%, ~1 hour)

Reminder:

• exam contributes 50% of final mark
• hurdle requirement: must score > 20/50 on exam

❖ Special Consideration

Reminder: this is a one-chance exam.

• attempting the Exam is treated as "I am fit and well"
• subsequent claims of "I failed because I felt sick" are ignored

If you're sick, get documentation and do not attempt the exam.

Special consideration requests must clearly show

• how you were personally affected
• that your ability to study/take-exam was impacted

Other factors are not relevant   (e.g. "I can't afford to repeat")

❖ Revision

Things you can use for revision:

• past exams
• theory exercises
• prac exercises
• course notes
• textbooks

Pre-exam consultations leading up to exam  (see course web site)

❖ And that's all folks ...

End of COMP9315 21T1 Lectures

Good luck with the exam ...

And keep on using PostgreSQL ...

And don't forget to give feedback on MyExperience!