CS 54100: Database Systems

MWF 9:30a – 10:20a • LWSN B151 • Spring 2026

Personnel

Instructor

Chunwei Liu
Office: LWSN 2142D
Email: chunwei@purdue.edu

Hours: By email appointment

Teaching Assistant

Yaoxu Song
Office: DSAI B022
Email: song837@purdue.edu

Office Hours: Tuesdays 1:00-2:00PM

Course Portals: Access materials via Brightspace and discussions on Piazza.

Course Description

CS 541 introduces students to the design and development of database management systems (DBMSs). A number of fundamental DBMS concepts will be covered in the course. Students will learn the theory behind database systems, the issues that affect their functionality and performance, and importantly, SQL and NoSQL database architectures, what it takes to build the engine of a database management system, e.g., physical data organization including row and column stores, indexing including single and multi-dimensional indexing, extensible indexes, query processing techniques for database and data streaming engines, query optimization, transaction management, concurrency control including multi-version concurrency control, and recovery techniques.

The course will also explore next-generation AI-oriented data systems and agentic data pipelines.

Grading

* Late Policy: 10% penalty per calendar day; submissions closed after 5 days.

Group Project

The semester-long group project is an important part of the course. It has a research flavor to it. Some projects may involve programming while others may involve a survey of the literature on a given topic, comprehension, and presentation of a collection of research papers that discuss a certain topic.