Building Scalable and High-Performance Java™ Web Applications Using J2EE™ Technology

Summary

In this chapter, we briefly visited several basic yet important database concepts. We distinguished between logical and physical database design, keeping in mind that both influence how well the database performs and scales. We also surveyed several database objects, not just relational tables. Later, we'll see that understanding how to use these structures can be important during the deployment phase. Finally, we looked at query processing and how some of the database objects we described (such as indexes) play a role at runtime.

Although many engineers are familiar with building and querying databases, they're less familiar with the details of how databases work. This is like driving a race car and not understanding its engine. Instead ...