Recommendations for online articles / books about database architecture?

Question

Hi,

I was wondering if anybody had any recommendations for some good free resources where I could learn about complex database architecture?

All suggestions appreciated.

Answer 1

If you are new to the subject then Introduction to Database Systems by Chris Date is a good place to start before you get onto database design.

http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Database-Systems-8th/dp/0321197844

For books specifically about design:

http://www.amazon.com/Information-Modeling-Relational-Databases-Management/dp/0123735688

http://www.amazon.com/Practical-Issues-Database-Management-Practitioner/dp/0201485559

Answer 2

"Introduction to relational database theory" by Hugh Darwen.

Despite the impression that the title may give to some, it is an extremely valuable resource for "good practices in database design", at least if you are also willing to think about the underlying theory.

Answer 3

I have some info for you, but some of it's not quite what you asked for. So...

Part 1

I was (I'm guessing) in a similar position to you a while back; while reading up info on database design and data warehousing is definitely useful the best source of wisdom comes from other people who have been doing it for a long time.

• Don't just look at database design (in terms of a single database) - find a good data architect (if you can, they are rare); when you do, pick his/her brain. The mark of a good database isn't just what indexes it has (etc), I've discovered it's also about how the database fits into the wider picture.
• The 'development' view: find a good developer to get and pick their brain too; You're after someone older - the more grey hairs they have the better.
• The 'DBA' view: DBAs will offer a very different (and valuable) viewpoint, and it's usually not too hard to find a good one who's quite happy to complain about all the crap databases developers produce :)

Part 2 - Useful Links

As far as articles go I've gotten a lot of mileage out of Wikipedia - Wikipedia doesn't have an article called "How to Ace Database Design" but it does have good articles on a lot of the parts / mechanics of databases, data marts and data warehouses; my recommended reading list would include:

• Data Warehouse
• Data Mart
• OLTP and OLAP (designing for a transactional system is very different from designing for reporting).
• Fact and Dimension (and Slowly Changing Dimension)
• Star Schema and Snowflake Schema
• Normalization and Denormalization