Database design and the creation of an entity relationship diagram (also known as an "ERD" or data model) is an important part of the application development lifecycle. An accurate and up-to-date data model can serve as an important reference tool for DBAs, developers, and other members of a JAD (joint application development) team.
Effective database designers will keep in mind the principles of normalization while they design a database. Normalization is a database design approach that seeks the following four objectives:
- minimization of data redundancy,
- minimization of data restructuring,
- minimization of I/O by reduction of transaction sizes, and
- enforcement of referential integrity.
The project showcases the use of SQL in designing and managing a database for an online COVID-19 inventory store. It showcases how we can optimise database performance by removing anomalies and unnecessary dependencies by using database normalisation from 1NF to 3NF.