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ABSTRACT
Studies show that advanced database skills are important for student to be prepared for the today's highly competitive job market. A common task for database administrators is to insert large amount of data into a database. This paper illustrates how an up-to-date, advanced database topic, namely bulk insert, can be incorporated into a database class. It gives detailed examples on how to import different file types and discusses associated issues.
Keywords: SQL, Bulk insert, Database systems
1. INTRODUCTION
The job market for database administrator is growing faster than other information technology (TT) related professions with a predicted growth of 18% to 26% over the next ten years (U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2006-07 Edition). The vast majority of universities have recognized the need to integrate database education into their core IT curriculum and offer at least one course in database management (Kung, Yang and Zhang, 2006). To take advantage of the expanding job market students have to be equipped with not only fundamental database knowledge and skills, like normalization and standard SQL (Structured Query Language), but also with advanced SQL skills that are not traditionally covered in text books. Up-to-date knowledge and skills in emerging technologies are necessary for students to secure entry-level jobs, whereas fundamental knowledge and skills are valuable for job advancement (Lightfoot, 1999).
In the future, data transfer will be done in not only gigabytes but also terabytes and petabytes. (Babcock, 2006). The ability to quickly, inexpensively, and accurately transfer business and customer information as well as the ability to store, maintain, and analyze it will be a vital link to success. Traditionally, this challenge has been handled with Database Management Systems (DBMS). Unfortunately, database technology falls short of providing efficient automation techniques for the challenges that large collections of data raise. As storage back-end, many applications rely on relational databases, which are designed towards large data volumes. A new age of data transfer technologies are being used to tackle the demanding challenges of bridging backend storage and data transfer. One of the more popular and effective exchange methods for large-scale data transfer is the use of XML (Extensible Markup Language). Further, to open up the content of XML documents to analysis with declarative query languages, efficient...