Introduction to Database Systems
UC Berkeley, Spring 2025

Alvin Cheung
Pronouns: he/him/his
OH: Tues 1-2pm on Zoom, or by appointment
Hi all! I’m an EECS faculty and my group works on data systems research. Looking forward to meeting you all!

Lakshya Jain
Pronouns: he/him
OH: Monday 9-10 AM, virtual or by appointment
Hello! I’m a Cal alum who’s taught CS186 for years now, first as a TA and then as a lecturer. I did my undergraduate and masters’ degree from here and now work in industry as a software engineer. In my free time, I analyze elections. Go Bears!
- Notes are meant to be a supplement to lecture; they are not meant as a replacement. Notes do not cover the full scope of what is tested on exams.
- All lecture videos are posted on bcourses afterwards.
Zoom link for live lectures.
Week | Date | Lecture | Discussion | Vitamin | Project |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Jan. 22 | 0. Introduction and 1. SQL I |
No Section | SQL (due 2/3) | Setup (due 1/30) |
2 | Jan. 27 | 2. SQL II | SQL Regular (Slides) (WS) + (Sol) Exam Prep (Slides) (WS) + (Sol) |
SQL (due 2/6) |
|
Jan. 29 | 3. Disks, Buffers, Files | ||||
3 | Feb. 3 | 4. Cost Models and Indexes |
Disks + Files Regular (Slides) (WS) + (Sol) Exam Prep |
Disks, Buffers, Files (due 2/10) | |
Feb. 5 | 5. B+ Trees | B+ Trees (due 2/20) |
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4 | Feb. 10 | 6. B+ Trees and Costs | B+ Trees Regular (Slides) (WS) + (Sol) Exam Prep |
B+ Trees (due 2/17) | |
Feb. 12 | 7. Spatial & Vector Indexes |
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5 | Feb. 17 | President’s Day | Buffer Management & Spatial Indices Regular (Slides) (WS) + (Sol) Exam Prep(Slides (WS) |
Buffer Management & Spatial/Vector Indexes (due 2/24) | |
Feb. 19 | 8. Buffer Management | ||||
6 | Feb. 24 | 9. Sorting and Hashing | Sorting & Hashing Regular (Slides) (WS) + (Sol) Exam Prep (Slides (WS |
Sorting and Hashing (due 3/3) | Joins + QO (Part 1 due 3/6) (Part 2 due 3/13) |
Feb 26 | 10. Joins + Midterm 1 Review Midterm 1 (8-10pm) |
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7 | Mar. 3 | 11. Iterators and Relational Algebra |
Iterators and Joins Regular (Slides) (WS) + (Sol) Exam Prep |
Iterators and Joins + Relational Algebra (due 3/10) | |
Mar. 5 | 12. Query Optimization: Plan Space |
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8 | Mar. 10 | 13. Query Optimization: Costs and Search |
Query Optimization Regular (Slides) (WS) + (Sol) Exam Prep |
Query Optimization (due 3/13) | |
Mar. 12 | 14. Transactions and Concurrency I |
Locking (Part 1 due 3/28) (Part 2 due 4/7) |
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9 | Mar. 17 | 15. Transactions and Concurrency II |
Transactions and Concurrency Control Regular (Slides) (WS) + (Sol) Exam Prep |
Transactions and Concurrency Control (due 3/31) | |
Mar. 19 | 16. Recovery I | ||||
10 | Mar. 24 | Spring Break | |||
Mar. 26 | Spring Break | ||||
11 | Mar. 31 | 17. Recovery II | Recovery | Recovery (due 4/7) | |
Apr. 2 | 18. Recovery III | Recovery (due 4/24) |
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Apr. 3 | Midterm 2 (8-10pm) | ||||
12 | Apr. 7 | 19. Parallel Query Processing | Parallel Query Processing | Parallel Query Processing (due 4/14) | |
Apr. 9 | 20. Distributed Transactions: 2-Phase Commit | ||||
13 | Apr. 14 | 21. Distributed Transactions: Paxos | Distributed Transactions | Distributed Transactions (due 4/21) | |
Apr. 16 | 22. NoSQL I: data models | ||||
14 | Apr. 21 | 23. NoSQL II: MongoDB | Consensus | Consensus (due 4/28) | NoSQL (due 5/8) |
Apr. 23 | 24. NoSQL III: MapReduce and Spark | ||||
15 | Apr. 28 | 25. Database Research [optional] | NoSQL | NoSQL (due 5/5) | |
Apr. 30 | 26. AWS [Optional] | ||||
16 | May. 5 | RRR Week | RRR Week - Review Sections | ||
May. 7 | RRR Week | ||||
17 | Final (TBD) |