Lessons from database research have been applied in academic fields ranging from bioinformatics to next-generation Internet architecture and in industrial uses including Web-based e-commerce and search engines. The core ideas in the field have become increasingly influential. This text provides both students and professionals with a grounding in database research and a technical context for understanding recent innovations in the field. The readings included treat the most important issues in the database area—the basic material for any DBMS professional.

This fourth edition has been substantially updated and revised, with 21 of the 48 papers new to the edition, four of them published for the first time. Many of the sections have been newly organized, and each section includes a new or substantially revised introduction that discusses the context, motivation, and controversies in a particular area, placing it in the broader perspective of database research. Two introductory articles, never before published, provide an organized, current introduction to basic knowledge of the field; one discusses the history of data models and query languages and the other offers an architectural overview of a database system. The remaining articles range from the classical literature on database research to treatments of current hot topics, including a paper on search engine architecture and a paper on application servers, both written expressly for this edition. The result is a collection of papers that are seminal and also accessible to a reader who has a basic familiarity with database systems.