AD-402 RGPV B.Tech
Database Management System (DBMS)
Previous year papers and the official syllabus are free to read, no account needed.
Previous Year Papers
9 papers, latest Jun 2026
- AD-402 paper, Jun 2026
- AD-402 paper, Jun 2025
- AD-402 paper, Dec 2024
- AD-402 paper, Jun 2024
- AD-402 paper, Dec 2023
- AD-402 paper, Nov 2023
Syllabus, notes and important questions for AD-402
Syllabus units
Topics as the official RGPV syllabus lists them.
Unit 1 DBMS Concepts and Architecture 14 topics
- DBMS concepts and architecture introduction
- Database approach versus traditional file‑accessing approach
- Advantages of database systems
- Data models, schemas and instances
- Data independence
- Database language and interfaces
- Overall database structure
- Functions of DBA and designer
- Entity‑relationship (ER) data model: entities and attributes, entity types
- Defining the ER diagram
- Concepts of generalization, aggregation and specialization
- Transforming ER diagram into relational tables
- Other data models: object‑oriented, network, and relational data models
- Comparison among object‑oriented, network, and relational models
Unit 2 Relational Data Models 12 topics
- Domains, tuples, attributes, relations and characteristics of relations
- Keys and key attributes of a relation
- Relational database schemas
- Integrity constraints and referential integrity
- Intension vs. extension
- Relational query languages: SQL DDL and DML
- Integrity constraints in SQL
- Complex queries and various joins
- Indexing, triggers, assertions
- Relational algebra operations: select, project, join, division, outer union
- Relational calculus: tuple‑oriented and domain‑oriented
- Operations of relational calculus
Unit 3 Database Design and Query Optimization 8 topics
- Normalization: introduction, normal forms, functional dependency
- Decomposition, dependency preservation and lossless join
- Issues with null‑valued and dangling tuples
- Multivalued dependencies
- Query optimization: introduction and optimization steps
- Algorithms for implementing select, project, and join operations
- Heuristic‑based optimization methods
- Cost‑estimation based optimization methods
Unit 4 Transaction Processing and Distributed Databases 11 topics
- Transaction processing concepts and transaction system
- Testing of serializability, conflict‑serializable and view‑serializable schedules
- Recoverability and recovery from transaction failures
- Log‑based recovery and checkpoints
- Deadlock handling
- Concurrency control techniques: locking, timestamp protocols, validation‑based protocols, multiple granularity locking
- Multiversion concurrency control and recovery with concurrent transactions
- Introduction to distributed databases
- Data mining, data warehousing
- Object technology and DBMS: comparative study of OODBMS vs. DBMS
- Temporal, deductive, multimedia, web and mobile databases
Unit 5 Relational DBMS Study and NoSQL 15 topics
- Study of RDBMS through Oracle/PL‑SQL/MySQL: architecture, physical files, memory structures, background processes
- Concepts of tablespaces, segments, extents and blocks
- Dedicated server vs. multi‑threaded server
- Distributed database features: database links and snapshots
- Data dictionary and dynamic performance views
- Security, role management, privilege management, profiles, invoker‑defined security model
- SQL queries: data extraction from single and multiple tables, equi‑join, non‑equi‑join, self‑join, outer join
- Special operators: LIKE, ANY, ALL, EXISTS, IN
- Hierarchical queries, inline queries, flashback queries
- ANSI SQL: anonymous blocks, nested blocks, branching and looping constructs
- Cursor management: nested and parameterized cursors
- PL/SQL exception handling, stored procedures with IN/OUT/IN‑OUT parameters
- User‑defined functions and their limitations
- Triggers, mutating table errors, INSTEAD‑OF triggers
- Introduction to NoSQL databases
Exam insights
Counted from 4 past AD-402 papers.
Marks asked per paper, by unit
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Unit 1 DBMS Concepts and architecture Introduction 26 marks
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Unit 2 Relational Data models 23 marks
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Unit 3 Data Base Design 23 marks
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Unit 4 Transaction Processing Concepts 21 marks
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Unit 5 Study of Relational Database Management Systems through Oracle/PL SQLQL/MySQL 16 marks
Average marks of the questions from each unit in one paper. You answer only some of them, so the total is more than the paper’s maximum.
Asked again and again
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Explain the architecture of a typical DBMS with a neat diagram.
Asked 3 times: 2026, 2024, 2023
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Explain multivalued dependency and Fourth Normal Form (4NF) with example.
Asked 2 times: 2026, 2024
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Explain the concept of NoSQL databases and compare their features, characteristics, advantages, limitations and applications with traditional RDBMS.
Asked 2 times: 2026, 2024