Chapter 4: Gathering and Understanding Business Requirements before Creating Database Objects

Overview

After completing this chapter, you will be able to:

• Gather requirements from the database perspective

• Understand business data and its lifetime

• Pinpoint operating requirements such as performance, scalability, and security

• Estimate capacity planning

In previous lessons, you learned the basics of Microsoft SQL Server 2005: how it may help you, how to install it, and what tools it offers. We will now shift the focus from SQL Server 2005 to your application and explore the way you should capture business requirements to build a solid foundation for your design.

Programmers and project managers frequently underestimate how critical the gathering and comprehension of business requirements are in the software development processwith devastating effects. Industry studies estimate that more than 35% and up to 50% of project failures are related to lack of user input as well as incomplete or changing requirements. The Standish Group International Inc., in their Chaos Report and Extreme Chaos Reports, estimated that only 29% of all projects succeeded (delivered on time, on budget, with required features and functions). If you apply the concepts learned in this lesson, you will avoid much of that risk and increase your development effectiveness.