Database Foundations

Trails in This Module

1. Trail 1

   What a Database Does

   What must remain true about the business record when people edit, archive, export, or restore it? Define which information is authoritative, who owns it, and what must remain true as it changes.

   Open Trail

2. Trail 2

   Records, Tables, Documents, and Relationships

   What must remain true about the business record when people edit, archive, export, or restore it? Model stable business identities and relationships before optimising for the first screen's convenient data shape.

   Open Trail

3. Trail 3

   SQL and NoSQL

   What must remain true about the business record when people edit, archive, export, or restore it? Choose the mature option the team can operate from the product's relationships, integrity needs, query patterns, and team capability rather than assumed modernity.

   Open Trail

4. Trail 4

   Designing a Basic Data Model

   What must remain true about the business record when people edit, archive, export, or restore it? Begin with business facts and rules, then test the model against representative workflows and changes.

   Open Trail

5. Trail 5

   Validation and Data Integrity

   What must remain true about the business record when people edit, archive, export, or restore it? Enforce critical invariants at the strongest reliable boundary, including the database where appropriate.

   Open Trail

6. Trail 6

   Migrations and Schema Changes

   What must remain true about the business record when people edit, archive, export, or restore it? Plan schema changes with backups, compatibility, verification, and a recovery path before applying them to production.

   Open Trail

7. Trail 7

   Backups and Recovery

   What must remain true about the business record when people edit, archive, export, or restore it? Set recovery targets from business consequence and prove restoration regularly rather than merely enabling backups.

   Open Trail

8. Trail 8

   Data Export, Retention, and Deletion

   What must remain true about the business record when people edit, archive, export, or restore it? Define these rules by data category, customer promise, legal need, backup behaviour, and provider limitations.

   Open Trail

9. Trail 9

   Multi-Tenant Data

   What must remain true about the business record when people edit, archive, export, or restore it? Attach tenant ownership to every protected record and enforce it centrally in queries and tests.

   Open Trail

10. Trail 10

    Recognising Weak Database Design

    What must remain true about the business record when people edit, archive, export, or restore it? Review the model using real workflows, failure cases, lifecycle changes, and recovery needs before scaling it.

    Open Trail