2025-07-25 - Revived course CS581 - Database Management Systems

Boris will be teaching a revamped version of course CS581 - Database Management Systems in fall 2025.

You probably have heard about database and maybe even know SQL and have used databases in projects. However, do you really know what goes on under the hood? How do these system store data, how are queries processed, what is cost-based optimization, how are index structures implemented, and how do systems implement concurrency control and recovery?

This course aims to answer these questions providing students with extensive background on the algorithms, system design, implementation techniques, and best practices developed by the database community over the last 5-ish decades. Coming out of this course you will understand to a significant degree how databases like DuckDB, SQLite, Postgres, Oracle, SQLserver, and Snowlake work and be able to build (parts of) a data management system. Time permitting we will also touch on advanced / cutting edge techniques like Big data systems, NewSQL databases, in-memory query processing and query processing on modern hardware.

Please visit the course webpage to learn more.