Database Reference
In-Depth Information
Interview key players
Examine documents
Observe data transfer
Determine business requirements
Identify entities, relationships, and constraints
Build data model
Convert entities to relations
Normalize relations
Specifies physical configuration of database
Specify data storage structure and operation environment
Validate if business requirements are met
Figure 2.1
Database design process.
2.2 Database Conceptual Design
Since the goal of database design is to meet the business requirements, clearly identifying the
business needs is the key to success. In this section, several methods that you can use for your
investigation are introduced.
First, let us list the information that needs to be collected during the investigation. We should
focus on the objects whose information needs to be stored in a database. For example, the objects
involved in a class registration process may be student, professor, class, and classroom. he follow-
ing is the object information we want to collect:
he objects to keep track of
he attributes describing the objects
he type and amount of data associated with the objects
he relationships among the objects
he business rules imposed on the objects
he roles played by the objects in the business process
he following are commonly used methods to collect the information listed above:
Interview the key players who are involved in the business process. Find out what works and
what does not in the current business process, the requirements for the future database, and
what the motivation is for developing the new database. A successful interview depends on
careful preparation and good interpersonal and communication skills.
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