Chapter 7:
Physical Database Design and
Performance
7-1
Steps in Database Design
Real World
1. Conceptual Database Design Entity-relationship diagram
2. Logical Database Design Relations/Tables
3. Physical Database Design File structures
7-2
Objectives
Define terms
Describe the physical database design process
Choose storage formats for attributes
Select appropriate file organizations
Describe three types of file organization
Describe indexes and their appropriate use
Translate a database model into efficient structures
Know when and how to use denormalization
7-3
Physical Database Design
• Purpose–translate the logical description of data
into the technical specifications for storing and
retrieving data
• Goal–create a design for storing data that will
provide adequate performance and ensure
database integrity, security, and recoverability
7-4
Physical Design Process
Inputs Decisions
Normalized relations
Attribute data types
Volume estimates
Physical record descriptions
Attribute definitions (doesn’t always match
logical design)
Response time expectations
File organizations
Data security needs Leads to
Indexes and database
Backup/recovery needs
architectures
Integrity expectations
Query optimization
DBMS technology used
7-5
Figure 5-1 Composite usage map
(Pine Valley Furniture Company)
7-6
Figure 5-1 Composite usage map
(Pine Valley Furniture Company) (cont.)
Data volumes
7-7
Figure 5-1 Composite usage map
(Pine Valley Furniture Company) (cont.)
Access Frequencies
(per hour)
7-8
Figure 5-1 Composite usage map
(Pine Valley Furniture Company) (cont.)
Usage analysis:
14,000 purchased parts
accessed per hour
8000 supplies accessed from
these 14,000 purchased part
accesses
7000 suppliers accessed from
these 8000 supplies accesses
7-9
Figure 5-1 Composite usage map
(Pine Valley Furniture Company) (cont.)
Usage analysis:
7500 suppliers accessed per
hour
4000 supplies accessed from
these 7500 supplier accesses
4000 purchased parts
accessed from these 4000
supplies accesses
7-10
Designing Fields
Field1 Field2 …..
•Field: smallest unit of application data
recognized by system software
•Field design
• Choosing data type
• Coding, compression, encryption
• Controlling data integrity
7-11
Choosing Data Types
7-12
Figure 5-2 Example of a code look-up table
(Pine Valley Furniture Company)
Code saves space, but costs
an additional lookup to
obtain actual value
7-13
Field Data Integrity
Default value–assumed value if no explicit value
Range control–allowable value limitations (constraints
or validation rules)
Null value control–allowing or prohibiting empty fields
Referential integrity–range control (and null value
allowances) for foreign-key to primary-key match-ups
Field1 Field2 …..
Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) legislates importance of financial data integrity
7-14
Handling Missing Data
• Substitute an estimate of the missing value (e.g., using
a formula)
• Construct a report listing missing values
• In programs, ignore missing data unless the value is
significant (sensitivity testing)
Graduation Year Age
Triggers can be used to perform these operations.
7-15
Denormalization
• Transforming normalized relations into non-normalized physical
record specifications
• Benefits:
• Can improve performance (speed) by reducing number of table lookups
(i.e. reduce number of necessary join queries)
• Costs (due to data duplication)
• Wasted storage space
• Data integrity/consistency threats
• Common denormalization opportunities
• One-to-one relationship
• Many-to-many relationship with non-key attributes (associative entity)
• Reference data (1:N relationship where 1-side has data not used in any
other relationship)
7-16
Figure 5-3 A possible denormalization situation: two entities with one-
to-one relationship
7-17
Figure 5-4 A possible denormalization situation: a many-to-many
relationship with nonkey attributes
Extra table
access
required
1NF:Partial FD
Duplicate description possible
7-18
Figure 5-5
A possible
denormalization
situation:
reference data
Extra table
access
required
Data duplication
7-19
Denormalize with caution
• Denormalization can
• Increase chance of errors and inconsistencies
• Reintroduce anomalies
• Force reprogramming when business rules change
• Perhaps other methods could be used to improve
performance of joins
• Organization of tables in the database (file organization
and clustering)
• Proper query design and optimization
7-20
Partitioning
• Horizontal Partitioning: Distributing the rows of a
logical relation into several separate tables
• Useful for situations where different users need access to
different rows
• Three types: Key Range Partitioning, Hash Partitioning, or
Composite Partitioning
• Vertical Partitioning: Distributing the columns of a
logical relation into several separate physical tables
• Useful for situations where different users need access to
different columns
• The primary key must be repeated in each file
• Combinations of Horizontal and Vertical
7-21
Vertical vs Horizontal Partitioning
7-22
Facebook Distributed Architecture
7-23
Partitioning pros and cons
• Advantages of Partitioning:
• Efficiency: Records used together are grouped together
• Local optimization: Each partition can be optimized for
performance
• Security: data not relevant to users are segregated
• Recovery and uptime: smaller files take less time to back up
• Load balancing: Partitions stored on different disks, reduces
contention
• Disadvantages of Partitioning:
• Inconsistent access speed: Slow retrievals across partitions
• Complexity: Non-transparent partitioning
• Extra space or update time: Duplicate data; access from multiple
partitions
7-24
Oracle’s Horizontal Partitioning
• Range partitioning
• Partitions defined by range of field values
• Could result in unbalanced distribution of rows
• Like-valued fields share partitions
• Hash partitioning
• Partitions defined via hash functions
• Will guarantee balanced distribution of rows
• Partition could contain widely varying valued fields
• List partitioning
• Based on predefined lists of values for the partitioning key
• Composite partitioning
• Combination of the other approaches
7-25
Example of Horizontal Partitioning
7-26
Vertical Partitioning
• Distribution of the columns of a logical relation into
several separate physical tables.
• Example:
• One PART table involving accounting, engineering, and sales
attributes.
• Split into three, each with the same Product ID, one for each
user group.
• This reduces demand on individual relations.
• When combinations of data are required, perform join queries
for all needed relations.
7-27
Designing Physical Database Files
•Physical File:
• A named portion of secondary memory allocated for
the purpose of storing physical records
• Tablespace–named logical storage unit in which data
from multiple tables/views/objects can be stored
•Tablespace components
• Segment – a table, index, or partition
• Extent–contiguous section of disk space
• Data block – smallest unit of storage
7-28
Hard Disk Structure
7-29
Hard Disk Structure
7-30
Figure 5-6 DBMS terminology in an Oracle 12c environment
7-31
File Organizations
• Technique for physically arranging records of a file on
secondary storage
• Factors for selecting file organization:
• Fast data retrieval and throughput
• Efficient storage space utilization
• Protection from failure and data loss
• Minimizing need for reorganization
• Accommodating growth
• Security from unauthorized use
• Types of file organizations
• Heap – no particular order
• Sequential
• Indexed
• Hashed
7-32
Figure 5-7a
Sequential file
organization
Records of the Sequential
file are stored in storage:
sequence by the Average time to
find desired record
primary key
= log2n
field values.
If this were a
heap,
Average time to
find desired record
= n/2
7-33
Indexed File Organizations
• Storage of records sequentially or nonsequentially with
an index that allows software to locate individual
records
• Index: a table or other data structure used to determine
in a file the location of records that satisfy some
condition
• Primary keys are automatically indexed
• Other fields or combinations of fields can also be
indexed; these are called secondary keys (or nonunique
keys)
7-34
Indices in Library System
7-35
Figure 5-7b Indexed file organization
uses a tree search
Average time to find desired
record based on depth of the
tree and length of the list
7-36
Figure 5-8 Join Indexes – to speed up join operations
b) Join index for matching foreign
key (FK) and primary key (PK)
a) Join index
for common
non-key
columns
7-37
Figure 5-7c
Hashed file
organization
Hash algorithm
Usually uses division-
remainder to determine
record position. Records
with same position are
grouped in lists.
7-38
7-39
Clustering Files
• In some relational DBMSs, related records from different
tables can be stored together in the same disk area
• Useful for improving performance of join operations
• Primary key records of the main table are stored adjacent
to associated foreign key records of the dependent table
• e.g. Oracle has a CREATE CLUSTER command
7-40
Unique and Nonunique Indexes
• Unique (primary) Index
• Typically done for primary keys, but could also apply to other
unique fields
• Nonunique (secondary) index
• Done for fields that are often used to group individual entities
(e.g. zip code, product category)
7-41
Rules for Using Indexes
1. Use on larger tables
2. Index the primary key of each table
3. Index search fields (fields frequently in WHERE
clause)
4. Fields in SQL ORDER BY and GROUP BY
commands
5. When there are >100 values but not when there
are <30 values
7-42
Rules for Using Indexes (cont.)
6. Avoid use of indexes for fields with long values;
perhaps compress values first
7. If key to index is used to determine location of
record, use surrogate (like sequence number) to
allow even spread in storage area
8. DBMS may have limit on number of indexes per
table and number of bytes per indexed field(s)
9. Be careful of indexing attributes with null
values; many DBMSs will not recognize null
values in an index search
7-43
Exercise
• Author(AID, Name, Street, City, Country, Email, Mobile, BankAccount …)
• C0-Authored(AID, Tno, SeqNo)
• Textbook(Tno, Title, Abstract, ISBN, Pages, PubDate, …CAID)
• Download(Tno, RID, DLDDateTime, PaidAmount)
• Reader(RID, Name, Street, City, Country, Email, Mobile, …)
7-44
Summary
• Physical database design:
• Translates the logical description of data into the technical
specifications for storing and retrieving data;
• Its goal is to create a design for storing data that will provide
adequate performance and insure database integrity, security and
recoverability.
• A file organization arranges the records of a file on a
secondary storage device. The three categories are:
1. sequential;
2. indexed; and
3. hashed.
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