Database Reference
In-Depth Information
2.5 Summary
In this chapter, you have learned about database design, including conceptual design, logical
design, and physical design. he irst task of database design is to investigate business requirements.
A case study is used to illustrate the investigation process. he case study is about a class registra-
tion process. he investigation can be accomplished by interviewing the key players, observing
the underlying business process, and examining the documents used in the business process. By
analyzing the investigation results, the database designer can extract the information useful for
developing a data model. For the logical design, data modeling is introduced in this chapter. he
IDEF1X standard is used for E-R modeling. IDEF1X is a national standard representing data
models in database development. For creating highly scalable databases that are accessible any-
where and anytime, Microsoft Windows Azure is introduced. Cloud computing provides an ideal
environment for companies that need dynamically scalable databases. For the physical design,
two types of Storage Services, Windows Azure SQL Database and Windows Azure Storage, are
discussed in this chapter.
Review Questions
1. What information about objects should be collected before designing a database?
2. How do you collect information needed for the conceptual design?
3. Why is data modeling important in a database development process?
4. What is an entity? Give an example of an entity.
5. Explain the diference between an entity class and an entity instance.
6. What is an attribute? Give an example of an entity with some attributes.
7. What is an identiier? Give an example of an identiier.
8. Explain what a surrogate key is.
9. What is a domain? Give an example of a domain.
10. Describe the identifying relationship and give an example about it.
11. Describe the nonidentifying relationship and give an example of it.
12. Describe the many-to-many relationship and give an example of it.
13. What is a categorization relationship? Give an example of a categorization relationship.
14. What is cardinality? Give an example of cardinality.
15. What does the letter Z stand for as a cardinality symbol?
16. What issues are related to physical design?
17. What is Windows Azure SQL Database?
18. What are the three components included in Windows Azure Storage Services?
19. What type of data does Windows Azure Blob storage store?
20. What type of data does Windows Azure Table storage store?
