For many new or intermediate database developers, it’s difficult to know where to start when designing a relational database. It’s easy to make the mistake of assuming that the functionality of a database will take shape over time, or the design will fall into place as you build the database.

Database Design: A Modern Approach
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What you'll learn
In this course, you will perform steps to design a relational database, including gathering requirements, data modeling, and planning implementation.
Skills you'll gain
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January 2026
1 assignment
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There are 6 modules in this course
You have data that needs to be stored in a database. You may have used a database program before, but using a database and creating one are not the same thing. In this lesson, you will gather information to plan a database.
What's included
7 plugins
You have gathered requirements and information sources, and now you are ready to begin sketching out the design for the database. You will start by identifying concepts that you will represent in the database.
What's included
4 plugins
After you've gathered requirements and identified the concepts your database will represent, you can start modeling the database logic.
What's included
5 plugins
You've incorporated into your database design all of the concepts that you need to represent. You've identified tables and many of the columns that need to go into them, as well as the relationships between each table. Now it's time to perform some quality control on your design.
What's included
4 plugins
What's included
7 plugins
You'll wrap things up and then validate what you've learned in this course by taking an assessment.
What's included
1 assignment1 plugin
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