Database Design Example 1: Analysis

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Real-world example: creating a publishing tracking system

Now let's walk through the database design process with a step-by-step example. The Poet's Circle is a publisher that publishes poetry and poetry anthologies. It is keen to develop a new system that tracks poets, poems, anthologies and sales. The following sections show the steps taken from the initial analysis to the final, working database.

Poet's circle database phase 1: analysis

The following information is gleaned from speaking to the various stakeholders at Poet's Circle. They want to develop a database system to track the poets they have recorded, the poems they write, the publications they appear in, as well as the sales to customers that these publications make.

The designer asks various questions to get more detailed information, such as "What is a poet, as far as the system goes? Does Poet's Circle keep track of poets even if they haven't written or published poems? Are publications recorded even before there are any associated poems? Does a publication consist of one poem, or many? Are potential customer's details recorded?" The following summarizes the responses in our example:

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