Beginning Database Design Solutions

Chapter 1. Goals of Effective Database Design

Using modern database tools, just about anyone can build a database. The question is, will the resulting database be useful?

A database won't do you much good if you can't get data out of it quickly, reliably, and consistently. It wons't be useful if it's full of incorrect or contradictory data. It also won't be useful if it is stolen, lost, or corrupted by data that was only half written when the system crashed.

You can address all of these potential problems by using modern database tools, a good database design, and a pinch of common sense, but only if you understand what those problems are so you can avoid them.

Step one in the quest for a useful database is understanding database goals. What should a database do? What makes a database useful and what problems can it solve? Working with a powerful database tool without goals is like flying a plane through clouds without a compass: you have the tools you need but no sense of direction.

This chapter describes the goals of database design. By studying information containers such as files that can play the role of a database, it defines properties that good databases have and problems that they should avoid.

In this chapter, you learn:

• Why a good database design is important.

• Strengths and weaknesses of different kinds of information containers that can act as databases.

• How computerized databases can benefit from those strengths and avoid those weaknesses.

• How good database design helps achieve ...