Toward a Design Methodology for DBMS: A Software Engineering Approach

A design methodology for DBMS is presented. The methodology consists of three interacting models: a model for the system structure, a hierarchical performance evaluation model, and a model for design structure documentation, which are developed concurrently through a top-down design process. Thus, using this methodology, the design is evaluated and its consistency checked during each phase of the design process. It is shown that systems designed using this methodology are reasonably independent of their environments, reliable, and can be easily modified. A modest example is used to illustrate the methodology.