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Querying Relational Databases

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Database Normalization

1:33 with Andrew Chalkley and Kevin Nahm

Learn the process of database normalization, which is the process of eliminating redundant or repeating data in a database.

There are hundreds of sites that go into normalization to varying degrees.
Some of the ones we like are:

Wikipedia: Database Normalization
Study Tonight: Database Normalization
Essential SQL: Database Normalization

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    Database designers go through a great deal of planning to achieve optimal storage and 0:00
    performance while generating the desired context for 0:05
    the data stored in database tables. 0:09
    Designing a relational database in this manner is called normalization. 0:12
    During the process of normalization, 0:17
    the database schema designer is thinking about the data that is important to 0:19
    their business and how best to fit that in to tables. 0:23
    They're looking for places where the data would repeat and what values depend on 0:27
    one another so that they can group certain things together logically. 0:31
    Take for instance this very simple spreadsheet. 0:36
    Everything is lumped together in one large table or dataset. 0:39
    It's easy for a human to read like this but as you add more rows and 0:43
    columns, it would get more and more difficult to read and maintain. 0:47
    Let's briefly look at it through the eyes of a database designer. 0:51
    Upon first glance, 0:54
    the database designer would probably notice there are three main data groups. 0:55
    Customer, car and sale. 1:00
    They would be broken apart into separate tables. 1:03
    They might also notice within car there is a chance to have repeating makes. 1:06
    So, they would make that separate as well. 1:11
    This separation is called normalization. 1:15
    As the normalization process comes to completion, 1:18
    the designer will end up with a data model that might look something like this. 1:21
    This is a crude representation of the normalization process. 1:27
    We'll go into this into a little more detail in the next video. 1:31

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