Design fundamentals

Database Modeling Tips

by Emil Drkušić
28 Jun 2016 When you were learning database concepts, data modeling looked pretty easy, didn’t it? You knew all the rules, and modeling seemed like a game: get a challenge, do your best, and eventually solve it. Job well done! Moving up to the next level – and so on. As you continue, though, you’ll see that database modeling is also an art. Many cases require a totally new approach. Everything can be done ‘by the book’, but sometimes you get better results when you go less orthodox.
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Design fundamentals

Improve Your Financial Reporting With Data Warehousing

by Emil Drkušić
16 Jun 2016 Financial institutions, especially banks, usually have really large datasets. To use that data, it must be stored in such a way that it is easily available for generating reports. The trend now is to use a data warehouse to store all your relevant data, and to use smaller data marts (subsets of the warehouse) to keep specific data sets in a convenient place. But where to start? In this article, we’ll look at one possible solution, similar to a project I worked on in the past.
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Design fundamentals

Crow’s Foot Notation

by Patrycja Dybka
31 Mar 2016 The most recognizable characteristic of crow’s foot notation (also known as IE notation) is that it uses graphical symbols to indicate the ‘many’ side of the relationship. The three-pronged ‘many’ symbol is also how this widely-used notation style got its name. Let’s see where crow’s foot is placed in the history of data modeling and take a look at its symbols. History: How Crow’s Foot Notation Got Started The beginning of crow’s foot notation dates back to an article by Gordon Everest (1976, Fifth Computing Conference, IEEE).
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Design fundamentals

Denormalization: When, Why, and How

by Emil Drkušić
17 Mar 2016 Databases are designed in different ways. Most of the time we can use “school examples”: normalize the database and everything will work just fine. But there are situations that will require another approach. We can remove references to gain more flexibility. But what if we have to improve performance when everything was done by the book? In that case, denormalization is a technique that we should consider. In this article, we’ll discuss the benefits and disadvantages of denormalization and what situations may warrant it.
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Design fundamentals

13 Blog Articles on Database Design Best Practices and Tips

by Jeffrey Edison
23 Feb 2016 There’s a lot to keep in mind when you’re designing a database, and very few of us can remember every valuable tip and trick we’ve learned. So, let’s take a look at some online resources that feature database design tips and best practices. As we go, I’ll share my own opinions on the ideas presented, based on my experience in database design. Obviously, this article is not an exhaustive list, but I’ve tried to review and comment on a cross section of sources.
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Design fundamentals

19 Online Resources for Learning About Database Design Errors

by Jeffrey Edison
28 Jan 2016 We all make mistakes, and we can all learn from other people’s mistakes. In this post, we’ll take a look at numerous online resources for avoiding poor database design that can lead to many problems and cost both time and money. And in an upcoming article, we’ll tell you where to find tips and best practices. Database Design Errors and Mistakes to Avoid There are numerous online resources to help database designers avoid common errors and mistakes.
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Design fundamentals

Problem Set 2 – Identifying Entities and Attributes

by Adrian Więch
7 Jan 2016 function toggleDiv(id) { $("#hide-show-div-" + id).toggle(); var button = $("#hide-show-button-" + id); var label = button.prop('value'); if (label == 'Hide Solution') { button.prop("value", "Show Solution"); } else { button.prop("value", "Hide Solution"); } } In an earlier article on data modeling we promised to give you a set of exercises to practice finding entities and attributes. Here is the second installment of our problem set. Enjoy. Problem 1: Countries Description: Find the right entities and their attributes to represent all the countries in the world, their interior regions (which can be called states, provinces, or regions) and their cities.
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Design fundamentals

Problem Set 1 – Identifying Entities

by Adrian Więch
18 Dec 2015 function toggleDiv(id) { $("#hide-show-div-" + id).toggle(); var button = $("#hide-show-button-" + id); var label = button.prop('value'); if (label == 'Hide Solution') { button.prop("value", "Show Solution"); } else { button.prop("value", "Hide Solution"); } } In an earlier article on data modeling we promised to give you a set of exercises to practice finding entities. Well, here they are. Have fun! Problem 1: Language School Mr. Trotter, the proprietor of a rapidly-growing language school, wants to introduce a new system in his company.
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Design fundamentals

Database Modeling Course (2)

by Adrian Więch
1 Dec 2015 You’re finally ready to get down to real data modeling. We’ll start off with entities and their attributes. Entities are the basic building block of every data model. In this post, you’ll find out what they are and how to identify them. What Is an Entity? What is a Specific Instance of an Entity? Data models help us to identify what kind of information we’ll store in our system. We use such models to address the question What will the data in our system be about?
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Design fundamentals

Naming Conventions in Database Modeling

by Jeffrey Edison
19 Nov 2015 What’s In A Name? The Database Edition Database models require that objects be named. While several facets of naming an object deserve consideration, in this article we’ll focus on the most important one: defining a convention and sticking to it. Why Use Naming Conventions? Look at the database model below. I went a bit overboard and removed as many traces of a naming convention as I could. This proves my first point: a naming convention is an important part of a well-built data model.
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