Database Design for Mere Mortals™: A Hands-On Guide to Relational Database Design, Second Edition

Determining and Establishing Table Relationships

The fourth phase of the database-design process involves establishing table relationships. You conduct interviews with users and management once again, identify relationships, identify relationship characteristics, and establish relationship-level integrity.

Working with users and management is a prudent exercise because they can assist you in identifying relationships among the data. You cannot possibly be familiar with every aspect of the data your organization uses, so leveraging whatever knowledge they have about the data they use will be very beneficial to you.

After you've identified the relationships, you establish a logical connection between the tables in each relationship with a ...