Beginning Database Design Solutions
Rod Stephens
Language: English
Pages: 552
ISBN: 0470385499
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
This book is intended for IT professionals and students who want to learn how to design, analyze, and understand databases. The material will benefit those who want a better high-level understanding of databases such as proposal managers, architects, project managers, and even customers. The material will also benefit those who will actually design, build, and work with databases such as database designers, database administrators, and programmers. In many projects, these roles overlap so the same person may be responsible for working on the proposal, managing part of the project, and designing and creating the database.
This book is aimed at IT professionals and students of all experience levels. It does not assume that you have any previous experience with databases or programs that use them. It doesn’t even assume that you have experience with computers. All you really need is a willingness and desire to learn.
This book explains database design. It tells how to plan a database’s structure so the database will be robust, resistant to errors, and flexible enough to accommodate a reasonable amount of future change. It explains how to discover database requirements, build data models to study data needs, and refine those models to improve the database’s effectiveness.
The book solidifies these concepts by working through a detailed example that designs a realistic database. Later chapters explain how to actually build databases using two common database products: Access 2007 and MySQL.
The book finishes by describing some of the topics you need to understand to keep a database running effectively such as database maintenance and security.
This book explains database design. It tells how to determine what should go in a database and how the database should be structured to give the best results.
To remain database neutral, the book does not assume you are using a particular database so you don’t need any particular software or hardware. To work through the Exercises, all you really need is a pencil and some paper. You are welcome to type solutions into your computer if you like but you may actually find working with pencil and paper easier than using a graphical design tool to draw pictures, at least until you are comfortable with database design and are ready to pick a computerized design tool.
Mile in the User’s Shoes ❑ Study Current Operations ❑ Brainstorm ❑ Look to the Future ❑ Understand the Customers’ Reasoning ❑ Learn What the Customers Really Need ❑ Prioritize ❑ Verify Your Understanding ❑ Write the Requirements Document 11:18am Page 66 Stephens c04.tex V3 - 10/08/2008 11:18am Chapter 4: Understanding User Needs ❑ Make Use Cases ❑ Decide Feasibility This list isn’t perfect but it makes a good meta-plan — a plan for making the project’s plan. (Hopefully
that text might say: ❑ The user enters selection criteria in the upper part of the form and clicks the Search button. ❑ The program displays a list of matching order records in the bottom of the form. ❑ The user can select an order from the list and click Open to open that order’s detail form. At this level, the user probably thinks of each order as containing all of the information on this form. If you were to fill out an order on a piece of paper, that paper would include blanks for you
airline flights. It contains data about a party of two flying from Denver to Phoenix and a party of three flying from San Diego to Los Angeles. The first two columns give the start and destination cities. The final column gives the connection cities (if any) or the number of connections. The rows are ordered so the frequent flyer passengers are at the top, in this case in the first three rows. City City Connections DEN PHX 1 SAN LAX JFK, SEA, TPA SAN LAX JFK, SEA, TPA DEN PHX 1 SAN
Jones Pro 2 2:30 Annette Cart Pro 3 3:30 Sydney Dart Amateur 1 3:30 Mike Acosta Amateur 6 3:45 Annette Cart Pro 3 Though this table is in 1NF (don’t take my word for it, verify it yourself), it is trying to do too much work all by itself and that leads to several problems. Note that the Wrestler field contains both first and last names. This would violate 1NF if you consider those as two separate pieces of information. For this example, assume you only need to display first and
entire primary key out of the table and put them in a new table. In this case, you could create a new Wrestlers table and move the Class and Rank fields into it. You would add a WrestlerName field to link back to the original table. 147 Page 147 Stephens c07.tex V3 - 10/08/2008 Part II: Database Design Process and Techniques Figure 7-4 shows a relational model for the new tables. Matches Time WrestlerName 1 1 Wrestlers WrestlerName Class Rank Figure 7-4 Figure 7-5 shows the new tables