Presentation for IBIMA 2008 Conference (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/267271447_Back_to_Simplicity_An_Old-Looking_New_Database_Design_Methodology). This paper develops a database design methodology which is based on the graphical representation of dependencies among database attributes. Rooted in the papers of Bernstein, Smith, Mannila and Raiha, Ausiello, D’Atri and Sacca, the methodology lacks the formalistic bedrock so abundant in normalization papers. It is intentionally less rigorous but more relevant to the database designers.

1. Back to Simplicity:
An Old-Looking New Database Design Methodology
Marin Fotache, Catalin Strimbei
IBIMA2008

2. An “ancient” problem
How to design a database schema for a real-world application ?
Modeling, analysis & design approaches
E/R
Unified Process (UML)
Agile methodologies
Etc
Normalization

3. Two methodologies of
Normalization
Decomposition (Codd, 1972 & co)
Splitting repeatedly the Universal Relation into relations in
order to remove partial and transitive functional dependencies,
multivalued and join dependencies
1NF 2NF 3NF BCNF 4NF 5NF...
Synthesis (Bernstein, 1976)

4. The proposed guide - pillars
Keeping some repeating groups and splitting the others
Functional dependencies
Removing simmetrical FD’s
Using surrogate keys for:
Identification problems
Transforming MVDs
Inclusion dependencies (IS-A roles)
Graphical representation

5. A FD chart (graph)

6. A simplified version of the
chart

7. Representing Inclusion
Dependencies

8. Comparison

9. Surrogation for “fixing” the
chart

10. A “hard surrogation” case

11. Accepting insular attributes

12. BCNF transformation

13. BCNF transformation -
example

14. Trick and surrogates

15. (Another) Trouble with FDs

16. A FD/IND based solution

17. MVD’s – (a R.Fagin’s
example)
Emp#
SpouseID
ChildID
Salary
Year
HireDate
EmpDept
PersName
YearOfBirth

18. Removing MVDs – two solutions