Database Design Best Practices [closed]

Answer 1

The best book I've ever read in regards to database design is "Database Design for Mere Mortals" by Michael J Hernandez. The name sounds like a beginners book, but people at any level could gain knowledge from it. It's also platform independent as it deals with looking at the data itself and how to properly organize it - not the technology being used.

He also wrote a book on writing queries named "SQL Queries for Mere Mortals" that I've heard (haven't read this one myself yet) is quite good.

Database Design for Mere Mortals

Answer 2

Possibly the most famous best practice is database normalisation. This set of techniques allows you to design your database so that redundant items are removed, and fields are grouped logically.

Answer 3

A few points:

• Learn as much as you can about problem domain. You can't create good data model without knowing what you're designing for
• Have good knowledge about data types provided by your database provider
• How to properly use normalisation and design tables
• Performance: when and how to apply indexes, how to write efficient queries etc.
• When and how to use different DB objects like views, procedures, functions, triggers

Answer 4

I didn't find what I was looking for in this question, but this one has a bunch of recommendations for design patters in DB design

Answer 5

As with anything, the answer here is, "It Depends."

Databases can be used to do different things, and some of those things will require opposing directions in design and development.

An OLTP database system will be designed entirely differently from one used as a reporting or warehousing solution. The first is often normalized, and a warehouse is often de-normalized. This helps the system get the desired performance for its intended behavior.

Even within a segment of this, depending on if the usage will be read-heavy or write-heavy, different design decisions might be appropriate.

The best bet is to look into best practices for a much smaller segment of database development that corresponds to the type of application you're trying to build.

Answer 6

i would say that as long as the database is normalized and if you are making a VLDB then partition it correctly then you should be fine. other best practices include using CRUD for the stored procedures and ensuring that all tables cascade properly. most everything else is subjective. Using "Y/N" is old school database programming from when bit hasn't been introduced yet. It can also be used for scalability purposes like "Y/N/Maybe" but if that were the case bast practices would say to normalize that and make a lookup table.