CSE 532 Database Systems (Fall 2025)

IMPORTANT information for course selection

Although sharing the same class code, this course is not the same course of the past 532 Theory of Database. This is a more systems course on the database topic emphasizing on systems design and implementation. It has a very different focus and interest on the goals and requirements. Please be aware of this before you sign up the class.

Course information

Database systems are the foundation of modern data-driven applications, from cloud services to distributed platforms handling billions of users worldwide. This class teaches both fundamental concepts and cutting-edge techniques in modern database systems. We cover classical topics including transaction processing, concurrency control, SQL and indexing, alongside contemporary developments in cloud databases, distributed systems, and large-scale data processing platforms.

The course emphasizes real-world systems through influential research papers from companies like Google, Facebook/Meta, Amazon, and Snowflake. Students will study how theoretical concepts are implemented in production systems like Spanner, Aurora, TiDB, MongoDB, Spark and MapReduce.

The course consists of lectures covering both theory and practice, with readings from top-tier systems conferences (OSDI, SIGMOD, VLDB, NSDI). Labs provide hands-on experience implementing core database components.

Prerequisites:

Data Structures and Algorithms
Database
System-level programming experience

Acknowledgement

The topics and many materials of this class are from database systems courses taught at MIT and UC Berkeley.