CAIRO BOOKS's Description
“Riordan covers core skills for any developer—database design and
development—in a perfect amount of detail. This book should be on every
professional developer’s reading list.”
— Duncan Mackenzie, developer, Microsoft (MSDN) “Designing a database is not a
trivial subject. Riordan brings experience and clear explanations to a
fundamental part of software development.”
— Patrick Birch, database and technical writing consultant “If you buy only
one book on database design, make it this one. Riordan has a talent for
explaining technical issues in simple language, without over simplifying.”
— Brendan Reynolds, developer, Dataset IT Systems and Microsoft Access MVP “A
book that will expertly guide you in how to develop a database for a client—
and how to do it right the first time!”
— Kenneth D. Snell, Ph.D., ACCESS developer and Microsoft Access MVP “Riordan
has produced a unique book that brings together a formal, yet commonsense,
approach to relational database design...and then goes further! Many database
designers will find immense value in the steps to developing practical data
warehouse designs. If you are seeking a framework for designing transactional
databases, or want to step out into the world of analytical databases,
Riordan’s book excels at bridging both worlds.”
— Paul Irvine, vice president, engineering, Via Training “Riordan takes a
complex subject and makes it easy. If you’re over your head on a database
design project, this book will help bail you out!”
— Mike Gunderloy, contributing editor, Application Development Trends “This
book covers a wide range of database design and data modeling topics in a
well-organized, easy to understand format.”
— Amy Sticksel, Sticksel Data Systems, Inc. “In Designing Effective Database
Systems, Riordan’s style, wit, and attention to detail are outstanding.”
— Sandra Daigle, Microsoft Access MVP The Software Developer’s Step-by-Step
Guide to Database Design
World-renowned expert Rebecca M. Riordan has written the definitive database
design book for working developers who aren’t database experts. No matter how
messy or complex your data challenge, Designing Effective Database Systems
shows you how to design an effective, high-performance database to solve it.
Riordan begins by thoroughly demystifying the principles of relational design,
making them accessible to every professional developer. Next, she offers the
field’s clearest introduction to dimensional database modeling—practical
insight for designing today’s increasingly important analytical applications.
One task at a time, the author illuminates every facet of database analysis
and design for both traditional databases and the dimensional databases used
for data warehousing, showing how to avoid common architectural pitfalls that
complicate development and reduce extensibility. The book concludes with
comprehensive, expert guidance on designing databases for maximum usability.
This book will teach you to Understand relational database models, structures,
relationships, and data integrity principles Define database system goals,
criteria, scope, and work processes Construct accurate conceptual models:
relationships, entities, domain analysis, and normalization Build efficient,
secure database schema Master the elements of online analytical processing
(OLAP) design: fact tables, dimension tables, snowflaking, and more Architect
and construct easy, efficient interfaces for querying and reporting Learn from
practice examples based on Microsoft’s Northwind sample database
Riordan has helped thousands of professionals master database design and
development, earning Microsoft’s coveted MVP honor for her exceptional
contributions. Nobody is more qualified to help you master database design and
apply it in your real-world environment.