Beginning Database Design Solutions

by Rod Stephens

This book is intended for IT professionals and students who want to learn how to design, analyze, and understand databases. The material will benefit those who want a better high-level understanding of databases such as proposal managers, architects, project managers, and even customers. The material will also benefit those who will actually design, build, and work with databases such as database designers, database administrators, and programmers. In many projects, these roles overlap so the same person may be responsible for working on the proposal, managing part of the project, and designing and creating the database. This book is aimed at IT professionals and students of all experience levels. It does not assume that you have any previous experience with databases or programs that use them. It doesn’t even assume that you have experience with computers. All you really need is a willingness and desire to learn. This book explains database design. It tells how to plan a database’s structure so the database will be robust, resistant to errors, and flexible enough to accommodate a reasonable amount of future change. It explains how to discover database requirements, build data models to study data needs, and refine those models to improve the database’s effectiveness. The book solidifies these concepts by working through a detailed example that designs a realistic database. Later chapters explain how to actually build databases using two common database Access 2007 and MySQL. The book finishes by describing some of the topics you need to understand to keep a database running effectively such as database maintenance and security. This book explains database design. It tells how to determine what should go in a database and how the database should be structured to give the best results. To remain database neutral, the book does not assume you are using a particular database so you don’t need any particular software or hardware. To work through the Exercises, all you really need is a pencil and some paper. You are welcome to type solutions into your computer if you like but you may actually find working with pencil and paper easier than using a graphical design tool to draw pictures, at least until you are comfortable with database design and are ready to pick a computerized design tool.

Genres: Programming, Technology, Computer Science

560 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2008

Reviews

[Terri Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

Database Concepts course

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beginning Database Design Solutions is a great beginner-friendly book about database design. It is a wonderful starting point for novices, more so than further dept for advanced users, but it will still approach topics that you may have not seen or thought about before, while also refreshing other ideas. The book presents a decently thorough experience in the database field and has a variety of examples and exercise portions. While I was looking for something more advanced, it still gave some good pointers, especially in its first part. The second portion is more focused on specific cases and seems unnecessary for those that have reasonable experience with databases.

[Pond · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's a pretty comprehensive book - teaching you not what a database is and how to use it, and also how to talk to users and model their needs in a database. Lots of exercises and examples.

My 2 stars is because I don't find the book very insightful relative to its size. So I skimmed very aggressively. It's great that there's a whole chapter (or multiple?) about how to interview a user and exactly what design document you should produce, but from that detailed account I didn't get much insights that I'd adopt in my own work - there's a lot of instructions, but the reasoning behind them isn't all that interesting.

[Prince Venus · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great book but not for those who don't want to learn the nitty gritty detail .I read huge volumes of books and sometimes I find it annoying when they go in to great detail straight away with no overview

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Part I: Introduction to Databases and Database Design
1. Goals of Effective Database Design
2. Database Types
3. Relational Database Fundamentals

Part II: Database Design Process and Techniques
4. Understanding User Needs
5. Translating User Needs Into Data Models
6. Extracting Business Rules
7. Normalizing Data
8. Designing Databases to Support Software Applications
9. Common Design Patterns
10. Common Design Pitfalls

Part III: A Detailed Case Study [A Pet Store example outlining what you learn in Parts I and II]
11. User Needs and Requirements
12. Building a Data Model
13. Extracting Business Rules
14. Normalization and Refinement

Part IV: Implementing Databases (with Examples in Access and MySQL)
15. Microsoft Access
16. MySQL

Part V: Advanced Topics
17. Introduction to SQL
18. Building Databases with SQL Scripts
19. Database Maintenance
20. Database Security