Raghu Ramakrishnan got his B.Tech. from IIT Madras in 1983 and his Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin in 1987. He was a member of the Database Systems Group in the Computer Sciences Department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison from 1987 to 2006, and was a co-founder of the UW Data Mining Institute.

Ramakrishnan joined Microsoft in 2012 as a Technical Fellow and CTO, Information Services and heads the Cloud and Information Services Lab (CISL) with members in Redmond, WA and Mountain View, CA. From 2006 to 2012, he was a Yahoo! Fellow. In 1999, he founded QUIQ, a company that developed innovative collaborative customer support and knowledge management solutions used by companies such as Business Objects, Compaq, National Instruments, Network Appliances, Sun Microsystems, and others, and served as the Chairman and CTO until 2003, when QUIQ was acquired by Kanisa.

"Database Management Systems" provides comprehensive and up-to-date coverage of the fundamentals of database systems. Coherent explanations and practical examples have made this one of the leading texts in the field. The third edition continues in this tradition, enhancing it with more practical material. The new edition has been reorganized to allow more flexibility in the way the course is taught. Now, instructors can easily choose whether they would like to teach a course which emphasizes database application development or a course that emphasizes database systems issues. New overview chapters at the beginning of parts make it possible to skip other chapters in the part if you don't want the detail. More applications and examples have been added throughout the book, including SQL and Oracle examples. The applied flavor is further enhanced by the two new database applications chapters.