SQL Server™ 2005 Bible

Chapter 17. Implementing the Physical Database Schema

In This Chapter

• Creating the database files

• Creating tables

• Creating primary and foreign keys

• Configuring constraints

• Creating the user data columns

• Documenting the database schema

• DDL triggers

When I was in the Navy, I learned more from Master Chief Miller than he or I probably realized at the time. One of his theories was that an application was half code and half data. In more than 20 years of developing databases, my experience agrees with the Master Chief.

The data, both the schema and the data itself, is often more critical to the success of a project than the application code. The primary features of the application are designed at the data schema level. If the data schema supports a feature, then the code will readily bring the feature to life; but if the feature is not designed in the tables, then the front-end forms can jump through as many hoops as can be coded and it will never work right.

Optimization theory and strategy is a framework that organizes the dependencies between several popular optimization techniques. This chapter could have been called "Advanced Performance: Step 1."

The logical database schema, discussed in Chapter 2, "Relational Database Modeling," is a purely academic exercise designed to ensure that the business requirements are well understood. A logical design has never stored nor served up any data. In contrast, the physical database schema is an actual data store that must meet the Information Architecture ...