Database Modeling and Design

Description

Logical database design is largely the domain of application designers, who design the logical structure of the database to suit application requirements for data manipulation and structured queries. The definition of database tables for a particular vendor is considered to be within the domain of logical design in this book, although many database practitioners refer to this step as physical design.

Physical database design, in the context of these two books, is performed by the implementers of the database servers, usually database administrators (DBAs) who must decide how to structure the database for a particular machine (server), and optimize that structure for system performance and system administration. In smaller companies these communities may in fact be the same people, but for large enterprises they are very distinct.