Evolutionize your database design

Overview:

This sample chapter from Refactoring Databases: Evolutionary Database Design argues that evolutionary approaches to development that are iterative and incremental in nature are the de facto standard for modern software development. Accordingly, data professionals, in particular database administrators, need to adopt evolutionary and agile techniques similar to those of developers. The chapter offers an overview of existing database development techniques that enable data professionals to work in an evolutionary manner:

• Database refactoring. Evolve an existing database schema a small bit at a time to improve the quality of its design without changing its semantics.
• Evolutionary data modeling. Model the data aspects of a system iteratively and incrementally to ensure that the database schema evolves in step with the application code.
• Database regression testing. Ensure that the database schema actually works.
• Configuration management of database artifacts. Your data models, database tests, test data, and so on are important project artifacts that should be managed just like any other artifact.
• Separate developer sandboxes. Developers need their own working environments in which they can modify the portion of the system that they are building and get it working before they integrate their work with that of their teammates.

Title: Refactoring Databases: Evolutionary Database Design
ISBN: 0321293533
Published: March 2006
Authors: Scott W. Ambler, Pramodkumar J. Sadalage, Pramodkumar J. Sadalage
Chapter: Chapter 1: Evolutionary Database Development
Published by Addison Wesley Professional

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