Phases of Database Design

From S.B. Navathe, "Evolution of Data Modelling for Databases", Communications of the ACM, Vol. 35, No. 9 (Sept.
1992) 112-123 :-

Figure 1. The database schema design process

Conceptual Design – here the model provides a way of capturing the users' perception of data. The conceptual data
model provides the concepts essential for supporting the application environment at a very high nonsystem- specific
level.

Logical Design – here the model represents the organization of data for some implementable data model called the logical
data model or an implementation model. This model has modeling constructs that are easy for users to follow, avoid
physical details of implementation, but typically result in a direct computer implementation in some DBMS.

Physical Design – typically, at this step, data modeling is not used to describe data. Physical design consists of a variety of
choices for storage of data in terms of clustering, partitioning, indexing, providing additional access or directory structures,
and so on.