The Database Design, Essay Example

The first critical factor is associated with the requirements for a database design. The ultimate goal of an efficient database design is to meet all the requirements of an organization. Therefore meeting all the business requirements related to data retrieval, data management and data organization is vital. Secondly, the semantics related to relational engine along with meeting all the requirements of an organization is also important and considered as the second critical factor. However, normalization is required to tune the database design to implement according to the business requirements along with the database engine. The goal of normalization is to eliminate “confusion exists among database textbooks as well as to which normal form a designer should aspire” (Carpenter, 2008). Consequently, if the first and second goal is not followed, the data design will not be successful. In order to create best practices for building an efficient database, some of the factors play a vital role. They are as follows (Best practices: Creating and maintaining a database, n.d):

• Examine the data that needs to be stored in the database
• Remove any existing or duplicate records in the database (If any)
• Authenticate data during data capturing processes
• Learn, update and improve data during the design phase
• Generate Primary keys, however, only develop duplicate primary keys in a table, when required

Moreover, as per developer point of view, best practices are defined as (Database best practices, n.d):

• Use standardized names for Suffixes and prefixes
• Index your JOIN columns for robust data retrieval and performance
• “Continuous database refactoring” in not a bad option either
• Taking Backups as per schedule is vital

References

Carpenter, D. A. (2008). Clarifying normalization. Journal of Information Systems Education, 19(4), 379-382.

Best practices: Creating and maintaining a database Retrieved 8/14/2011, 2011, from http://www.slideshare.net/ExperianQAS/best-practices-for-cleaning-and-maintaining-a-database

Database best practices Retrieved 8/14/2011, 2011, from http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?DatabaseBestPractices