In this project, you will design and implement a relational database system to support the operations of an on-line movie rental system. You will use HTML for the user interface, for the database server, and Java, Javascript, and JDBC for connectivity between the user interface and database server. The database server is accessible from the PCs in both the undergraduate and graduate Transaction Processing labs (Computer Science Building, Rooms 2114 and 1239), on which you will be given a MySQL account.
Please see the Transaction Processing Lab web site for general information about the Transaction lab and its policies, and the lab's MySQL web site for information on how to access MySQL in the Transaction lab and account information.
If you own a PC, you are encouraged to develop as much of the code as possible on your PC, to ease the congestion in the TP lab. For these purposes, I suggest you use SQL Server or MySQL Server.
SQL server is a relational database server produced by Microsoft, based on the ANSI SQL-92 standard. You can get a free copy of the SQL Server Developer Edition, for 2005 and 2008, from the Stony Brook Microsoft Developer Network Academic Alliance (MSDNAA) web site.
For MySQL, you can download a copy of MySQL server from the
You are to work in teams of three. Many of you will form
teams of three on your own. If not, do not worry. Please just be sure to
attend class on a regular basis, and I will make sure that every student
is placed in a team of three.
Once you have joined a complete team, you and your teammates should choose a
name for your team/company. E-mail the names
of your team members and the name of your company to
mjavanmard@cs.sunysb.edu
as soon as possible. If you are unable to find a team to join, please let me
know asap, and I will find one for you.
The system you are to develop is a lot like the on-line movie rental web sites Netflix and Blockbuster. These systems work basically as follows:
In reality, Netflix and Blockbuster use the postal system to mail users a DVD along with a pre-paid envelope for returning it. They also allow you to stream the movie to your PC, laptop, or mobile device. You "return" the movie by hitting a return button linked to your account. For this project, your system will furthermore assume that there are only a certain number of copies of any given movie that can be out in circulation at any moment in time. Once that limit is reached, the movie is considered unavailable.
A very interesting aspect of online movie rental systems such as Netflix and Blockbuster is that they implement Recommender Systems that make movie suggestions which are likely to be of interest to their customers. Such systems often use a Nearest Neighbor approach to determine the movies they think will be of interest to a particular customer. The well publicized Netflix Prize, a contest with a dataset of over 100 million movie ratings and a grand prize of $1,000,000, has energized the search for new and more accurate algorithms. Please see the Recommender System Wikipedia page for more information.
Please visit the Netflix and Blockbuster web sites in order to get a better idea of how they work and to obtain an understanding of the look and feel of a movie rental web site.
I will also place a Powerpoint tutorial on blackboard on how to connect to Sybase using Java and on how to develop the UI (User Interface) for your online movie rental system course project. You will be able to find the tutorial in the Project Assignments subfolder of the Assignments folder. (You will also be able to find the tutorial via the link associated with the announcement I will post on blackboard about the tutorial.)
To further help you with the project, a former TA has developed a prototypical database system for a University Registration system that closely resembles the student registration system used as a running example in the course textbook. You should consult this demo system as a guide for your project development. You can access the demo system, and the underlying source code, by following the links I placed in an announcement I recently posted on blackboard. As you experiment with the demo system, you should also start to become familiar with Java, Javascript, HTML, and JDBC on your own. I will lecture about JDBC (Chapter 8 of the course textbook) after the midterm. You might also want to buy the books about these languages recommended on the course homepage.
It is recommended that you regularly check the blackboard Project
Assignments folder and the
PROJECT
ASSIGNMENTS web page for information on the course project. This page will
be updated from time to time with important information on how to proceed with
the project.
This semester there will be a CSE 305 Course Project
Competition in which the top-three finishing teams will receive award
certificates. I am trying to find a corporate sponsor for this competition and
will let you know when and if I succeed in doing so. So please do your best to
produce a professional-looking online movie rental system that offers a
full compliment of features and functionality, including at least those
specified below.
The basic idea behind your on-line movie rental system is that it will allow customers to use the web to browse/search the contents of your database (at least that part you want the customer to see) and to rent movies over the web. In this regard, it is a lot like the on-line movie rental web sites Netflix and Blockbuster. So visit these sites to get an idea as to what your system should look like.
Your database system must be based on the specifications and requirements that follow.
The users of your system will be the customers that use your system to rent movies and pay monthly fees for doing so, customer representatives who provide customer-related services, and the site's manager. You should assume that the computer knowledge of the users is limited (say, that of a typical AOL subscriber), and thus your system must be easy to access and operate.
The data items required for the movie-rental database can be classified into five categories: orders, movies, actors, customers and employees, where an order is an order to rent a movie.
This classification does not imply any particular table arrangement. You are responsible for arranging the data items into tables, determining the relationships among tables and identifying the key attributes. In addition, you should include indices in your tables to speed up query processing. You should base your choice of indices on the type and expected frequency of the queries outlined in Section 3. Finally, you should specify and enforce integrity constraints on the data, including referential integrity constraints.
As I mentioned in class, you will first create an E-R diagram of your online movie rental system before developing your relational model. Details of this assignment will be forthcoming.
This category of data should include the following items:
A user places an order to rent a particular movie. A customer representative, who oversees the successful completion of the order, is associated with every rental order.
This category of data should include the following items:
Movies are of a certain type: Comedy, Drama, Action, or Foreign. For testing purposes, you can populate your database with any movies you like. We will provide you with all the movie data you will need to demo your system to us at the end of the semester. The Distribution Fee is the dollar amount your company has to pay in order to obtain the rights to distribute a movie to the general public. A movie's rating is a measure of its popularity. You can assume it is a integer ranging from 1 to 5, with 5 indicating "must see at all cost" and 1 indicating "a clunker".
This category of data should include the following items:
An actor's rating is a measure of his or her popularity and like a movie rating is an integer from 1 to 5.
The items required for this category include:
A customer's Account Type indicates which of the four rental plans (the limited plan and the three unlimited plans) the customer has signed up for. The Account Type also functionally determines the customer's monthly account fee. The Movie Queue is the queue of movies the customer would like to see. The Rental History is a history of the movies the customer has rented since opening his account. The Rental History should also indicate which if any movies the customer currently has out. The customer's Rating should reflect how active a renter he or she is (the more active, the higher the rating). Like a movie rating, a customer rating should be an integer ranging from 1 to 5.
This category of data should include the following:
A database transaction can be viewed as a small program (written in the DML) that either updates or queries the database. Transactions that change the contents of the database must do so in a consistent manner. Moreover, transactions should not interfere with one another when running concurrently.
What follows is a breakdown of the user-level transactions that your database system should support. To make sure transactions maintain the integrity of the database, you must write them using the SQL transaction structuring capabilities (i.e., begin transaction, commit transaction, etc.).
The manager should be able to:
Customer Representatives should be able to:
Customers should be be easily able to browse your online movie rental system on the web and place orders to rent movies. In particular, they should be able to readily able to maintain a queue of movies they would like to see. While they will not be permitted to access the database directly, they should be able to retrieve the following information:
Customers should also be able to:
Your database system should provide controlled access to the data by distinguishing between the different types of users: manager, customer representatives, and customers.
In addition to the transactions described above, the system should provide facilities for:
HTML and its successors provide facilities for creating pop-up and pull-down menus, value lists, input/output forms, labels and customized reports. You should make use of all of these capabilities, and in the process come up with a system that caters to users with only limited computer knowledge. The information you provide to customers should look professional and inviting.
You will be required to supplement your completed database implementation with a design document that contains information concerning your design criteria and decisions. The following is a list of some of the information you should include:
You will also be required to submit a Users Guide that carefully explains how to use all aspects of the system. It should be understandable by non-computer experts. Be sure that the user interface (screen design, menu structure, etc.) is clearly explained.
You will be given three assignments: 1) produce an E-R and relational model of your system; 2) implement (in SQL) and execute all transactions described in the above project specification; and 3) implement (using Java, Javascript and JDBC) the final interactive system to support your online movie rental system. The due date for the first assignment will be announced shortly; as for the the other two assignments, the due dates for all three assignments will be spaced roughly three weeks apart.
All documentation should be on-line. You will also be asked to hand-in hardcopies when assignments are due.
In order to evaluate your final system, you will be asked to present a short (15-25 minutes) demo to myself or the TA. This will most likely happen during the last week of classes or shortly thereafter.
As stated above, you will be working on the course project in in teams of three. A rough, three-way division of labor for the first project assignment is as follows: