What is the difference between logical and physical design, in terms of databases?

Physical design covers many of the aspects of a database that are not visible to programs that use the database, but are very important to the DBA. This can include whether to use CHAR or VARCHAR for some columns, how the tables are indexed, and how the underlying storage structures are set up to ensure adequate performance for each table. Deciding whether to use views or derived tables is also a physical design decision.

The logical design is the public interface of the database, such as tables, columns, functions, and procedures, the outward appearance of which can be unchanged, even after the DBA performs significant restructuring of the physical design.

Physical design is data as it is actually stored in bit , byte form in the physical devices. Logical design is the real world view of data.

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hi,

logical database design is the conceptual model of the system (or business) in terms of its entities and attributes as they actually appear in the real world.

physical database design is the extension of the logical design for implementation in a RDBMS. the actual tables, attributes, data-types, length of attributes, partitions in database are all designed in the physical design for implementation.

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Haris