CHAPTER 5:

PHYSICAL DATABASE DESIGN AND PERFORMANCE

Modern Database Management

12th Edition
Global Edition

Jeff Hoffer, Ramesh Venkataraman,

Heikki Topi

Copyright © 2016 Pearson Education, Ltd.

 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

Chapter 5 Copyright © 2016 Pearson Education, Ltd. 5-2

 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
Chapter 5 Copyright © 2016 Pearson Education, Ltd. 5-3
 PHYSICAL DESIGN PROCESS
Inputs Decisions
Normalized relations Attribute data types
Volume estimates Physical record
Attribute definitions descriptions (doesn’t
Response time always match logical
expectations design)
Leads to File organizations
Data security needs
Indexes and database
Backup/recovery needs
architectures
Integrity expectations
Query optimization
DBMS technology used

Chapter 5 Copyright © 2016 Pearson Education, Ltd. 5-4

 PHYSICAL DESIGN FOR
REGULATORY
COMPLIANCE
 Sarbanes- Oxley Act (SOX) – protect
investors by improving accuracy and
reliability
 Committee of Sponsoring Organizations

(COSO) of the Treadway Commission

 IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL)

 Control Objectives for Information and

Related
Regulations andTechnology (COBIT)
standards that impact physical design decisions

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 Figure 5-1 Composite usage map
(Pine Valley Furniture Company)

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 Figure 5-1 Composite usage map
(Pine Valley Furniture Company) (cont.)

Data volumes

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 Figure 5-1 Composite usage map
(Pine Valley Furniture Company) (cont.)

Access Frequencies
(per hour)

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 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

Chapter 5 Copyright © 2016 Pearson Education, Ltd. 5-9

 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

Chapter 5 Copyright © 2016 Pearson Education, Ltd. 5-10

 DESIGNING FIELDS

 Field: smallest unit of

application data recognized by
system software
 Field design
 Choosing data type
 Coding, compression, encryption
 Controlling data integrity
Chapter 5 Copyright © 2016 Pearson Education, Ltd. 5-11
CHOOSING DATA TYPES

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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

Chapter 5 Copyright © 2016 Pearson Education, Ltd. 5-15

 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
Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) to primary-key
legislates match-
importance of financial data integrity
ups
Chapter 5 Copyright © 2016 Pearson Education, Ltd. 5-16
 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
Triggers can be used to perform these operations.
(sensitivity testing)
Chapter 5 Copyright © 2016 Pearson Education, Ltd. 5-17
 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 (Fig. 5-3)
 Many-to-many relationship with non-key attributes
(associative entity) (Fig. 5-4)
 Reference data (1:N relationship where 1-side has data
not used in any other relationship) (Fig. 5-5)
Chapter 5 Copyright © 2016 Pearson Education, Ltd. 5-18
Figure 5-3 A possible denormalization situation: two entities with one-
to-one relationship

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Figure 5-4 A possible denormalization situation: a many-to-many
relationship with nonkey attributes

Extra table
access
required

Duplicate description possible

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Figure 5-5
A possible
denormalization
situation:
reference data

Extra table
access
required

Data duplication

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 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)
 5Proper query
Chapter Copyright © design and optimization
2016 Pearson Education, Ltd. 5-22
 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
 Chapter 5
of©Horizontal
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2016 Pearson Education, Ltd. Vertical 5-23
 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
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 Extra space or update time: Duplicate data;
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
Chapter 5 Copyright © 2016 Pearson Education, Ltd. 5-25
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
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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
Chapter 5 Copyright © 2016 Pearson Education, Ltd. 5-27
 Figure 5-6 DBMS terminology in an Oracle 12c environment

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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
Chapter 5 Copyright © 2016 Pearson Education, Ltd. 5-29
Figure 5-7a
Sequential file
organization

Records of the Sequential

file are stored storage:
in sequence by Average time to
find desired record
the primary key
= log2n
field values.
If this were a
heap,
Average time to
find desired record
= n/2
Chapter 5 Copyright © 2016 Pearson Education, Ltd. 5-30
 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
secondaryCopyright
Chapter 5
keys (or nonunique keys) 5-31
© 2016 Pearson Education, Ltd.
 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
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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

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Figure 5-7c
Hashed file
organization

Hash algorithm
Usually uses division-
remainder to determine
record position. Records
with same position are
grouped in lists.

Chapter 5 Copyright © 2016 Pearson Education, Ltd. 5-34

Chapter 5 Copyright © 2016 Pearson Education, Ltd. 5-35
 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

Chapter 5 Copyright © 2016 Pearson Education, Ltd. 5-36

 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)

Chapter 5 Copyright © 2016 Pearson Education, Ltd. 5-37

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

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 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
Chapter 5 Copyright © 2016 Pearson Education, Ltd. 5-39
 QUERY OPTIMIZATION
 Parallel query processing–possible
when working in multiprocessor
systems
 Overriding automatic query
optimization–allows for query writers
to preempt the automated
optimization
 Oracle example:

/* */ clause is a hint to override Oracle’s

Chapter 5
default query
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2016 Pearson Education, Ltd. 5-40