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ARCH-3: Database Design, a Practical
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Gus Björklund
Wizard, Progress Software Corporation
Ask questions as we go
if I am not being clear.
Warning: there is a mistake in these slides.
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Rules are made to be broken
To every rule,
there is an exception!
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If you thought this talk was going to be about indexing …
It isn’t. Nor is it about performance.
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Topics
 Theory:
• What is Database Design
• Basic Elements
• Representing the Model as Tables
 Practice
• An Example
 Some Other Topics
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First, a little theory
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What do we mean by database design?
 A process for defining a model of a subset of
the “real”1 world, then representing it as data
in tables in a relational database
At least, that’s the definition we will use for
the purposes of this talk.
1 Well, for small values of real, anyway.
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Basic Elements
What do we put in our model?
 Just 3 Things:
• Entities
• Attributes
• Relationships
The “entity-relationship model” was described by Peter Chen in 1976.
See http://bit.csc.lsu.edu/~chen/chen.html
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Basic Elements: Entities
 Can be thought of as nouns
• People
– author, composer, performer, seller, buyer
• Places
– home, IP address, URL, destination, factory,
store
• Things
– song, recording, instrument, car, invoice
Is “telephone number” a place or a thing?
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Basic Elements: Attributes
Entities have attributes

Can be thought of as adjectives (but only loosely):
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Length
Color
Horsepower
Part number
Song Title
Publication Date
Size
Fabric
Owner
Is “telephone number” a attribute or an entity?
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Basic Elements: Relationships
Entities are connected by relationships
 Can be thought of as verbs:
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•
•
•
•
•
•
•
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has a
owns
contains
supervises
performs
called
sold
purchased
proved
Is “telephone number” a relationship?
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Relationships have attributes too
In May, 1995,
Andrew Wiles
published
a proof
of Fermat’s Last Theorem
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Relationships have attributes too
attribute
In May, 1995,
entity
Andrew Wiles
relationship
published
entity
a proof
of Fermat’s Last Theorem
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What goes in an entity
 Identifying attributes
• Must be able to uniquely identify the entity
• Can have more than one way to id
• Id can be composite
 Descriptive attributes
• the values you need to keep track of
• generally should be simple, not complex
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What to include in your model

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The things your application has to keep track of
• Telephones, wires, switches
The actions your application or its users perform
• Make calls, send telephone bills, collect payments
Some attributes of the things and actions
• Originating number, date and time of call, duration, called
number
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Keep it simple
Be accurate
Keep it up to date
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What to include in your model
 Consider the goals of the system
 Everything you include should be there for a
reason you can state
• in no more than two sentences
 Everything should have a clear name
• if you can’t name it, it doesn’t belong
 Talk to the stakeholders !!!
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What to leave out of your model
 The real world has properties that don’t
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

matter (to your application)
The real world has relationships that don’t
matter
Things happen in the real world that don’t
matter
Keep it simple
• If you can’t say why you need it, leave it out
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Logical vs Physical Data Models
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Logical entities often require multiple tables to
represent them
• Tables can be thought of as logical or physical
• It depends on your point of view
There is also the physical storage database layout
•
•
•
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storage areas
data extents
disks
etc.
We aren’t going to talk about the physical database
layout
We will talk about tables
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Mapping Your Model to a Database
Simply put,
 Entities become tables
• Identifiers become indexes
 Attributes become columns
• Data types: pick appropriate
 Relationships become tables or foreign keys
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“In theory, there is no difference between
theory and practice, but in practice there is.”
Jan van de Snepscheut
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Now for some practice.
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An example
 Music store
• Buys compact disc recordings from
distributors
• Has inventory
• Allows customers to search for what they want
– Maybe in an in-store kiosk or on the web
• Sells compact discs to customers
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What should we do first?
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Activities
 We buy discs from a distributor
 Orders are sent to a distributor
 Orders are delivered to the store
 Orders may be cancelled
 We sell discs to customers in sales transactions
 Customers buy discs in sales transactions
 Customers search for what they want to buy
Which of these must be remembered by the system?
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What do we need to keep track of
 Discs we have
 Discs we sold
 Discs we know about and can get
 Discs we have ordered
 Information needed to do our income tax
•
•
•
•
what we paid for stock
when we bought it
what we sold it for
when we sold it
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Disc entities
 UPC Code:
 Manufacturer:
 Cost to us:
 Price charged:
 Tax charged:
 Date purchased:
 Date sold:
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8697-07416-2
Sony BMG
$ 2.00
$ 17.95
$ 0.80
March 19, 2007
June 9, 2007
© 2007 Progress Software Corporation
Disc table might look like this
upc
manuf
cost
price
tax
datePurch
dateSold
8697-07416-2
Sony BMG
2.00
17.95
0.90
2007-03-19
2007-06-09
8697-07416-2
Sony BMG
2.00
?
?
2007-06-09
?
314-510347-2
Island Records
2.21
15.95
0.80
2006-01-12
2007-02-14
314-510347-2
Island Records
2.21
?
?
2006-01-12
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What’s wrong?
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Is upc a unique identifier?
Might have bought from a distributor
Have no information about what is on the disc
• How do customers search?
Don’t know when disc was made
Could be more than one tax jurisdiction
• provincial tax, city tax
Don’t know if disc is on order
Don’t know who bought it
Duplicated data
Etc., etc.
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Disc entities take 2
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UPC Code:
Manufacturer:
Distributor:
Cost to us:
Price charged:
Tax charged:
Date ordered:
Date received:
Date sold:
Disc Title:
Artist:
Track 1:
Track 2:
Track 3:
etc.
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8697-07416-2
Sony BMG
Bob’s Wholesale CD’s
$ 2.00
$ 17.95
$ 0.80
March 19, 2007
March 20, 2007
June 9, 2007
“The Essential Joshua Bell”
Joshua Bell
“Danse Russe”
“Violin Concerto in E Minor”
“Nocturne in C-sharp Minor”
© 2007 Progress Software Corporation
Example: Now What’s wrong?
 This is getting messy
 Activities combined with disc’s attributes
 Have duplicated information
 How many tracks can there be?
 What if there is more than one artist?
 Don’t have all the information a customer
might want to use to search
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Discs revisited
 Discs have titles
 Discs have pictures on the cover
 Discs contain tracks
 Discs are made by manufacturers
 Discs are purchased from distributors
 Discs are ordered from distributors
 Discs are delivered to the store
 Discs are sold to customers
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“Discs contain tracks …”
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Tracks contain songs
Tracks occur in order
Tracks have a duration
Songs are performed in performances
Songs have performers (usually)
Songs have composers
Songs have names (titles)
Songs have a key (but not always)
Performances are done by performers
Performers can be groups (bands, orchestras, etc.)
Performances are performed in a location or venue
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We seem to need these entities
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Discs
Manufacturers
Distributors
Orders
Customers
Inventory
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



Tracks
Songs
Performers
Groups ?
© 2007 Progress Software Corporation
Songs have names (titles).
Are names properties of songs?
Or are they entities related to songs?
Or are they something else?
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Song data (track 1)
Title
“Danse Russe” from Swan Lake, Op.20
Time
4:30
Composer
Peter Tchaikovsky
Category
Classical, violin, orchestra
Performers
Track number
Joshua Bell, Michael Tilson Thomas,
Berlin Philharminic Orchestra
1
Disc upc
8697-07416-2
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Song data (track 2)
Title
Violin Concerto in E Minor, Op. 64
Time
6:27
Composer
Felix Mendelssohn
Category
Classical, violin, orchestra
Performers
Track number
Joshua Bell, Sir Roger Norrington,
Camerata Salzburg
2
Disc upc
8697-07416-2
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Performance data
Title
Violin Concerto in E Minor, Op. 64
Time
6:27
Composer
Felix Mendelssohn
Category
Classical, violin, orchestra
Performers
Joshua Bell, Sir Roger Norrington,
Camerata Salzburg
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Performance data take 2
Title
Violin Concerto in E Minor, Op. 64
Time
6:27
Composer
Felix Mendelssohn
Category
Classical, violin, orchestra
Performers
Joshua Bell, Sir Roger Norrington,
Camerata Salzburg
?
Performance
Date
Performance
Location
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?
© 2007 Progress Software Corporation
Performer data
id
1
2
name
Joshua Bell
Sir Roger Norrington
3
4
5
6
Camerata Salzburg
Michael Tilson Thomas
Berlin Philharmonic
Bono
7
8
9
The Edge
Adam Clayton
Larry Mullen
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Performance to Performer Relationship
performance id performer id
1
1
1
2
1
3
1
…
2
1
2
4
2
5
2
…
325
6
325
7
325
8
325
9
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Performance data take 3
Performance id
2
Title
Violin Concerto in E Minor, Op. 64
Time
6:27
Composer
Felix Mendelssohn
Category
Classical, violin, orchestra
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Track to Performance Relationship
Disc upc
Track Num
Performance id
8697-07416-2 1
1
8697-07416-2 2
2
…
…
…
314-510347-2 1
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Relationships (so far):
track
performance
one to one
performer
performance
performance
disc
track
performer
performance
one to many
track
many to many
track
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What happened to Songs?
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Relationships (take 2):
song
track
performance
song
one to many
performance
one to one
performance
disc
one to many
track
performer
track
performance
performance
performer
track
performance
many to many
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Relationships (take 3):
disc
track
song
performance
performer
track
song
performance
performer
track
song
performance
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What about
“business entities”
?
Where are they
?
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Business entities
disc
track
song
performance
performer
track
song
performance
performer
track
song
performance
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Business entities
disc
track
song
performance
performer
track
song
performance
performer
track
song
performance
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Business entities
disc
track
song
performance
performer
track
song
performance
performer
track
song
performance
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Should you use arrays?
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Indexes
 Enforce uniqueness
 Make searches faster
 Enable fast retrieval of entities by their

identities
Enable finding entities with certain attributes
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What indexes do we need
for the music store database?
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Tables
0) Discs
1) Tracks
2) Songs
3) Performers
4) Performances
5) Tracks of discs
6) Performances of songs
7) Performers of performances
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What indexes do we need
0) Indexes for identifying attributes
1) A unique row identifier
2) Indexes for the queries you will do
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What should we do next ?
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Other Topics
 Normalization
 Unique keys
 Word indexes
 Naming
 Customisation
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Normalization
 Oversimplified, it means:
• Don’t duplicate data
 Attributes should be simple
•
•
•
•
have only one value
be necessary
not derived data
don’t repeat
 Complicated attributes are often entities in
their own right
• For example, addresses might be
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Unique keys
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EVERY table must have a unique key
EVERY row needs a unique identifier
• that never changes even if moved to another database
(i.e. if you replicate)
Often, users don’t need to see it
Use a UUID or sequence or maybe datetime
Unique key is the ONLY way to identify rows
unambiguously
ROWID’s are temporary and can change
Use the same method throughout
• You’ll be glad you did
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Word indexes
 Can be used to hold multiple status or
attribute values
• Conflicts with normalisation
• Flexible
 Easy to add new ones
 Queries are fast
 Example:
• Category: classical, violin, orchestral, concerto
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Naming
Good names are crucial to understanding
• What is in the column “GL01262” ?
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Naming
Good names are crucial to understanding
 Table and column names should have clear
meanings everyone can understand
• “GL01262” vs “dateEntered”
 Names with dashes cause inconvenience
with SQL
• “order-date”
 Booleans should be named for truth value
• “backOrdered”
 No double negations
• “notOutOfStock”
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Making tables customizable
We will look at 3 ways:
 Spare columns
 Separate table with spare columns
 Separate table with name/value pairs
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Spare columns in table
custnum
name
city
extra1
extra2
extra3
001
Bob
Phoenix
frozen
?
0.0
002
Alice
Boston
?
125.46
0.12
003
Eve
Denver
?
?
?
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Spare columns in table
custnum
name
city
extra1
extra2
extra3
001
Bob
Phoenix
frozen
?
0.0
002
Alice
Boston
?
125.46
0.12
003
Eve
Denver
?
?
?
What data types should you use?
How many spare columns?
Wasted columns when not used
How do you know what each spare got used for?
How do you know how many unused spares you have?
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Separate table for spare columns
custnum
name
city
001
Bob
Phoenix
002
Alice
Boston
003
Eve
Denver
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custnum
extra1
extra2
extra3
001
frozen
?
0.0
002
?
125.46
0.12
© 2007 Progress Software Corporation
Separate table for spare columns
custnum
name
city
001
Bob
Phoenix
002
Alice
Boston
003
Eve
Denver
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custnum
status
owed
discount
001
frozen
?
0.0
002
?
125.46
0.12
© 2007 Progress Software Corporation
Separate table with name/value pairs
custnum
name
city
001
Bob
Phoenix
002
003
Alice
Eve
Boston
custnum name
value
001
status
frozen
002
owed
125.46
002
discount
0.12
Denver
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Modeling Tools
 PCase
 Enterprise Architect
 Power Designer
 ConceptDraw
 Erwin
 Rational
Pencil and paper !
Blackboard !
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Summary
 Understand the requirements
 Leave out what is not needed
 Review the design with stakeholders
 Evolve the design as changes come up
 Test to make sure it works
• Can it do everything that is needed?
• Does it perform adequately?
 Expect changes to come
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Homework



Papers
• Wiles, A.: "Modular elliptic curves and Fermat's Last
Theorem”, Annals of Mathematics 141 (3): 443-551
• Chen, P.: “The Entity-Relationship Model -- Toward a
Unified View of Data”, ACM TODS Vol 1, No 1, 1976
Wikipedia articles to start from:
• entity-relationship model
• data model
Books:
• Teorey, Lightstone, Nadeau: “Database Modeling and
Design”, Morgan Kaufmann.
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Questions
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