Developing databases is a science that database developers must understand well. Software failures can often be associated with the failure to implement good database design. While it is important to learn and apply good database design, it is also important to have an adequate knowledge of using a suitable database management system (DBMS) to implement these principles. This book provides a good overview of designing databases in terms of the principles involved in developing databases. It also provides ample information on implementing these principles using Microsoft Access.

This book is divided into eight chapters. The first chapter presents the basic elements of database design, such as creating a table, and some elementary terms such as user data and metadata. The second chapter describes the relational model and the important principle of normalization, supplemented with good examples. The third chapter discusses the fundamental statements and queries associated with SQL. The fourth chapter explains data models such as the entity-relationship models used to design database systems. The fifth chapter advances the discussion on database design with more intricate details. It contains information on denormalization, data constraints, and column properties. The core purpose of this chapter is to explain the conversion of data models into database design.

Chapter 6 describes the role of the database administrator (DBA), and the implementation of DBA functions using examples from the Microsoft Access DBMS. Chapter 7 describes applications that work with database systems. Here, the authors explain the topic with a discussion of PHP coding used to connect to a database. I strongly believe that some Java programming examples on database connectivity may have been useful here. Chapter 8 concludes the book with a discussion of some advanced topics, such as data warehousing, big data, and business intelligence systems. I found the authors’ approach well balanced, providing equal weight to all of the topics discussed in the book.

Overall, this is a very good book for beginners. While most books on databases provide information on the principles of database design and development, this book describes the implementation details using an easy-to-use database tool. I would highly recommend using this book as a textbook or lab manual for courses on databases. I strongly encourage the authors to bring out another edition with examples of database implementation that use a more powerful DBMS, such as Oracle.

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