Administration Guide

Chapter 7. Logical Database Design

This section describes the following steps in database design:

• Decide What Data to Record in the Database
• Define Tables for Each Type of Relationship
• Provide Column Definitions for All Tables
• Identify One or More Columns as the Primary Key
• Ensure that Equal Values Represent the Same Entity
• Consider Normalizing Your Tables
• Planning for Constraints Enforcement
• Other Database Design Considerations.

Your goal in designing a database is to produce a representation of your environment that is easy to understand and that will serve as a basis for expansion. In addition, you want a database design that will help you maintain consistency and integrity of your data. You can do this by producing a design that will reduce redundancy and eliminate anomalies that can occur during the updating of your database.

These steps are part of logical database design. Database design is not a linear process; you will probably have to redo steps as you work out the design.

The physical implementation of the database design is described in Chapter 8, Physical Database Design, and in Chapter 13, Before Creating a Database.