Case Description Up to this point, you have developed the conceptual and logical models...

Case Description

Up to this point, you have developed the conceptual and logical models for Mountain View Community Hospital’s database. After considering several options, the hospital has decided to use Microsoft SQL Server, a relational DBMS, for implementing the database. Before the functional database is actually created, it is necessary to specify its physical design to ensure that the database is effective and efficient. As you have learned, physical database design is specific to the target environment and must conform to the capabilities of the DBMS to be used. It requires a good understanding of the DBMS’s features, such as available data types, indexing, support for referential integrity and other constraints, and many more. (You can alternatively assume that MVCH chose another DBMS with which you are familiar and then answer the following questions accordingly.)

Case Exercises

In Case Exercise 3, you created a composite usage map for part of the MVCH database, based on MVCH Figure 5-1. Referring to that composite usage map, do you see any opportunities for clustering rows from two or more tables? Why or why not? Is the concept of clustering tables supported in SQL Server? Does it differ from Oracle’s implementation? If so, how?