 |
Telaverus Features
Free For All
|
Subscribe to the:
Website World Views Newsletter
|
|
|
|
|
Website Database Design
Website Database design is our passion! Telaverus Inc. is pleased to have on-staff Stuart Schofield, who has a Postgraduate education in Enterprise Database Management.
Stuart has done Database-programming work for Hydro One (formerly Ontario Hydro) and has developed many RDBMS applications in his career.
If a Website Database design is needed for your site, Stuart will be the one to do it, he is our in-house database professional.
Here are some common Website Database design questions & answers:
- What is a Website Database?
- What is a Website Database used for?
- Do I need a Website Database?
- How do you design a Website Database?
What is a Website Database?
A Website Database is a collection of data stored on a server that is available to users over the Internet. The most common database environment on the Internet is called a L.A.M.P. (Linux, Apache, MySQL & PHP).
The popularity of the L.A.M.P. environment is a result of every component being Open Source, and therefore free to use by anyone with the skills to operate, configure, program and implement.
MySQL is the database component of the L.A.M.P. environment. MySQL is a consistently fast, highly reliable and easy to use database application.
Telaverus Inc. use MySQL for most of our website database applications. If you are wondering whether MySQL is good enough for your Website Database, take a look at the following companies using MySQL: MySQL Customers
If your business is using Oracle and require custom PL/SQL programming, please contact Stuart directly: stuart@telaverus.com
What is a Website Database used for?
A Website Database is used for storing a collection of information that you intend on searching, sorting, filtering and analyzing at some point in time.
Typically Website Databases store one or more of the following:
- User account & contact information
- Company product prices, descriptions and pictures
- Company product sales details
- Company sales & service records
- User activity, such as; downloads & usage
Do I need a Website Database?
To answer the Website Database requirement question, you need to envision your website 12 to 24 months down the road. This is not always the easiest thing to do.
The following types of online businesses typically require Website Databases:
- eCommerce sites selling multiple products
- Member or community sites
- Information sites offering frequently changing data
- Business sites with a large product range
- Real Estate websites with ever-changing content
How do you design a Website Database?
Website Database design complexities vary based on the application. Our Mississauga Website design team typically create all database designs using an ERD (Entity Relationship Diagram). This allows for clear communication of the final Website Database design to the client.
The purpose of the ERD and resulting relational model is to establish an efficient and non-redundant data storage model for the system. The diagrams represent data that are to be stored and not necessarily displayed to the end user.
Data implicated in these diagrams are a combination of that required for the applications output and system or data retrieval performance and maintenance.
Many Website Database applications do not require a fully normalized relational model. A desired level of normalization is often 3NF (third normal form).
Third normal form is a state of design where all transitive functional dependencies have been eliminated. Telaverus Inc. provide this level of detail to ensure our clients are receiving the most efficient database design possible, suiting their unique requirements.
Transitive functional dependencies are fields in a record that require other fields in that same record to be complete. Simply put; a transitive functional dependency is most always a sign of another database table being required.
Fig. 1.0 is an example of an ERD provided, as part of a more extensive proposal, to one of our clients. The task was to take the popular offline employment agency, online. The requirements were to also provide a searchable database of positions as well as available employees.
Fig 1.0 - Entity Relationship Diagram
(Click image for larger view)
The next step in designing a Website Database is to create the required tables in the database. This is typically done writing SQL queries.
Following the ERD in Fig. 1.0, to create the candidate table you would write the following SQL:
create table candidate ‹
candid int‹5› unsigned NOT NULL auto_increment,
classid int‹3› unsigned NOT NULL,
fname varchar‹25›,
lname varchar‹25›,
salpay varchar‹6›,
contractpay varchar‹6›,
title varchar‹40›,
descript blob,
loc varchar‹30›,
email varchar‹40›,
status varchar‹15›,
date date,
PRIMARY KEY ‹candid›
›
Note:
The absence of foreign keys is the result of MySQL not supporting them at the time of this document. Referential integrity in MySQL is maintained with "hard coding".
From this brief Website Database tutorial, you can see that the preparation for developing a Website Database the right way is quite involved.
Our Mississauga Website design team will database enable your website, make it scalable, efficient and easy to maintain.
|
|
|
|
