Microsoft Access 2013 Tutorials
Database 101 / Database Organization
Subtitles of the Movie (Microsoft Access 2013 / Database 101 / Database Organization)
Database organization is a term you'll read about, it's a term you'll hear about out there and so I just want to talk very briefly here about what database organization is so you'll know what they're talking about when you hear it. Database design this prospect of looking at data and then determining how to create a database to hold that data efficiently is somewhere between science and art. You at first have to understand the science and then you apply that science by working your own art with it. I live in Nashville, Tennessee I own a guitar. Now I understand part of the science of playing that guitar. I know a little music theory, I know how to make chords and so I got the science and I can play some chords and they will resemble songs. Alright. I have neighbors who make a living in the music business. They can take my same guitar and apply their art to the science and it's incredible what happens. That is exactly what happens with good database design. And experience is what will teach you that and when you're designing sometimes you just have to erase a lot. And the, the more you learn and the more experienced you get, the less you'll have to erase. Databases hold a collection of related data, we've already talked about that right? Well each individual piece of data has to be classified, grouped and stored in a way so that we can easily identify it and find it later. Because we have to know where the data is to be able to successfully query it or change it or delete it. And this is where database objects come into the scenario and database objects are what we're going to use to organize or design our database. Let me give you a little example here. So we've got a bunch of data and it's going to be stored within tables. And the data within the table is stored in rows. Think of an Excel spreadsheet, they're stored in rows. One row is a complete record. Then the data within each row is divided into columns. You'll also hear this called fields. So each individual piece of that row is a column. And we're going to set some restrictions on those columns to make sure that people put the right data in there. And we're going to determine what columns we need, what we're going to name those columns, that sort of thing. And then each column or each field has to have a specific data type. We have to tell the database processor what kind of data we want to store in there. It'll help enforce that for us and it will provide some tricks for dealing with the data later. Now database organization determines which tables are needed and what they are named. You always want to make sure you name your tables what they are. Six months from now you've got to come back and either work on those tables or write a query and you don't want a table named Donald Duck. Because what's in that table. Right. Who knows? You don't want tables named X, Y and Z. Those sorts of things, name the table what it is. If the table contains data on your employees, name the table employees. What data are going to store in each table? So I've got a table named employees, what data about those employees do I want to store in that table? That is a question that may database organization is going to determine. And this just kind of continues on and on and on through. Now here's the thing if I give you a scenario of the data that I need to store or manipulate. And I explain it to you and then I explain it to five other database developers, I will get five suggestions back on how this should be carried out. And if I get you five in a room and bring the question up a fight will probably start. There's a lot of different ways to do this and there's a right ways to do this. And then of course there are some that aren't as good. So we're going to talk a lot more about this later on in the course but for now I just wanted you to kind of get your head around this whole concept of database organization. Because when we look at tables, rows columns, data types, you'll be wondering, hey wait a minute who said that I should name it that or who said I should use that data type? Nobody did, the designer decides that stuff. And so you've got a lot of control here and so you want to relish that control but make sure that you use it properly. Okay. So that's just a little bit about database organization.
Tutorial Information
| Course: | Microsoft Access 2013 |
| Author: | Mark Long |
| SKU: | 34405 |
| ISBN: | 978-1-61866-090-9 |
| Release Date: | 2013-02-01 |
| Duration: | 7 hrs / 89 lessons |
| Work Files: |
Yes |
| Captions: | No |
| Compatibility: |
Vista/XP/2000, OS X, Linux QuickTime 7, Flash 8 |
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