PHYSICAL DATABASE DESIGN - A DECISION-SUPPORT MODEL

Methods and techniques are available for helping the system development effort at the analysis and logical design stages. Yet, once the system has been defined, the designer is left with many decisions that will affect the construction, operation and maintenance stages. This article proposes a conceptual model to support the database designer at the physical design stage. The model incorporates database design methodology with decision support system (DSS) methods. A prototype version of the model is described, together with an analysis of a case study. Such a model may be integrated into a CASE methodology to encompass the entire information system development cycle.