Introduction to Database Systems
UC Berkeley, Fall 2026
Alvin Cheung
Pronouns: he/him/his
Hi all! I’m an EECS faculty and my group works on data systems research. Looking forward to meeting you all!
- Our class is currently full with a waitlist. Instructors don't have enrollment codes and we'll let the waitlist play out.
- If you are a concurrent enrollment student, please describe how you have satisfied this class's prerequisites in your request.
- If you plan to add late, make sure you contact the staff first to see if you can make up the missed assignments before officially adding the class.
- All lecture videos are posted on bcourses after class.
- Please direct specific logistical questions to cs186@berkeley.edu, or make a private post on Ed if applicable.
| Week | Date | Lecture | Discussion | Vitamin | Project |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Aug. 26 | 0. Introduction and 1. SQL I |
No Section | Pre-semester Survey (due 9/4) |
Setup (due 9/4) |
| 2 | Aug. 31 | 2. SQL II | SQL Regular (Slides) (WS) (Sol) Exam Prep (Slides) (WS) (Sol) |
Vitamin 1 (due 9/8) |
SQL (due 9/10) |
| Sep. 2 | 3. Disks, Buffers, Files | ||||
| 3 | Sep. 7 | Labor Day | Disk, Files, Buffers Regular (Slides) (WS) (Sol) Exam Prep (Slides) (WS) (Sol) |
Vitamin 2 (due 9/14) |
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| Sep. 9 | 4. Cost Models and Index | ||||
| 4 | Sep. 14 | 5. B+ Trees | B+ Trees Regular (Slides) (WS) (Sol) Exam Prep (Slides) (WS) (Sol) |
Vitamin 3 (due 9/21) |
B+ Trees (due 9/24) |
| Sep. 16 | 6. Index Files and their Costs |
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| 5 | Sep. 21 | 7. Spatial and Vector Indices |
Buffer Mgmt & Spatial Indices Regular (Slides) (WS) (Sol) Exam Prep (Slides) (WS) (Sol) |
Vitamin 4 (due 9/28) |
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| Sep. 23 | 8. Buffer Management | Joins + QO (Part 1 due 10/8) (Part 2 due 10/15) |
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| 6 | Sep. 28 | 9. Sorting and Hashing | Sorting and Hashing Regular (Slides) (WS) (Sol) Exam Prep (Slides) (WS) (Sol) |
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| Sep. 30 | 10. Joins | ||||
| Oct. 1 | Midterm 1 (8 - 10pm) | ||||
| 7 | Oct. 5 | 11. Iterators and Relational Algebra |
Iterators, Joins, Relational Algebra Regular (Slides) (WS) (Sol) Exam Prep (Slides) (WS) (Sol) |
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| Oct. 7 | 12. Query Optimization: Plan Space |
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| 8 | Oct. 12 | 13. Query Optimization: Costs and Search |
Selectivity and Query Optimization Regular (Slides) (WS) (Sol) Exam Prep (Slides) (WS) (Sol) |
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| Oct. 14 | 14. Transactions & Concurrency I |
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| 9 | Oct. 19 | 15. Transactions & Concurrency II |
Transactions and Concurrency Regular (Slides) (WS) (Sol) Exam Prep (Slides) (WS) (Sol) |
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| Oct. 21 | 16. Recovery I | ||||
| 10 | Oct. 26 | 17. Recovery II | Recovery Regular (Slides) (WS) (Sol) Exam Prep (Slides) (WS) (Sol) |
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| Oct. 28 | 18. Parallel Query Processing |
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| 11 | Nov. 2 | 19. Distributed Transactions: 2PC |
Parallel Query Processing Regular (Slides) (WS) (Sol) Exam Prep (Slides) (WS) (Sol) |
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| Nov. 4 | No Lecture | ||||
| Nov. 5 | Midterm 2 (8 - 10pm) | ||||
| 12 | Nov. 9 | 20. Distributed Transactions: Paxos |
2PC Regular (Slides) (WS) (Sol) Exam Prep (Slides) (WS) (Sol) |
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| Nov. 11 | Veteran’s Day | ||||
| 13 | Nov. 16 | 21. Paxos continued | Consensus Regular (Slides) (WS) (Sol) Exam Prep (Slides) (WS) (Sol) |
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| Nov. 18 | 22. NoSQL I: Data Models |
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| 14 | Nov. 23 | 23. NoSQL II: MongoDB |
No Discussion | ||
| Nov. 25 | Thanksgiving | ||||
| 15 | Nov. 30 | 24. NoSQL III: MapReduce and Spark |
NoSQL Regular (Slides) (WS) (Sol) Exam Prep (Slides) (WS) (Sol) |
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| Dec. 2 | 25. Database Research (optional) |
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| 16 | Dec. 7 | RRR Week | |||
| Dec. 9 | RRR Week |