What does good database design require?

Answer 1

Good database design requires a thoughtful approach to ensure efficiency, scalability, and data integrity. Key principles include:

1. Clear Requirements and Objectives: Understand the business needs and data relationships to design a database structure that aligns with functional requirements.

2. Normalization and Data Organization: Apply normalization techniques to reduce redundancy and avoid data anomalies. Properly structured tables ensure data consistency and optimal storage usage.

3. Efficient Indexing: Create appropriate indexes to speed up data retrieval without over-indexing, which can slow down write operations.

4. Scalability and Performance: Design the database with growth in mind. Consider factors like partitioning, caching, and optimized query structures to handle increased data loads.

5. Data Integrity and Constraints: Enforce primary keys, foreign keys, and constraints to maintain relationships between tables and ensure that the data adheres to business rules.

6. Security: Implement robust security measures, including user authentication, role-based access control, and encryption, to protect sensitive data.

7. Backup and Recovery Plan: Design for data protection by incorporating strategies for regular backups and disaster recovery to prevent data loss.

By adhering to these principles, a database will be well-structured, maintainable, and capable of supporting the business's long-term needs.

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Answer 2

A well designed database will be normalized to the third normal form (3NF). The normal forms that are generally required to have a well designed database are First Normal Form (1NF), Second Normal Form (2NF), and Third Normal Form (3NF).

1NF states that each table has no dependency on top-to-bottom record ordering, left-to-right column ordering, no duplicate rows, and each column/row intersection contains exactly one value. For example, a column "Customer Name" is a bad idea; instead, consider "First Name" and "Last Name", since those are individual elements of a customer's full name.

2NF adds to 1NF by stating that each non-key column depends on the entire concatenated key (if the key is a composite primary key). For example, the description of an item would not belong in a table that stores items that were ordered; instead, it should be on the item table itself.

Finally, 3NF builds upon 2NF (and thus 1NF) by stating that data should not depend on a non-key attribute. For example, the customer's name should not appear in an order invoice table; the correct way to store this data would be in a customer table, with the order invoice table containing a reference to the customer table.

There are further forms (see any popular search engine for details), but those are generally considered more academic than practical in nature. In most cases, a database that fully conforms to 3NF will likely satisfy 4NF, 5NF, and 6NF, although there is no specific guarantee of that.

Answer 3

Ø Identify all the fields needed to produce the required information

Ø Organize each piece of data into its smallest useful part

Ø Group related fields into tables

Ø Determine each table's primary key

Ø Composite key

Ø Include a common field in related tables

Ø Avoid data redundancy

Ø Determine the properties of each field

Answer 4

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