Database Design
Our database design process, as other application development processes, begins with a high-level conceptual design, understanding the business requirements and the top-level entities that are going to required for the database application to run (such as users, accounts, contacts and purchases).
We then proceed to modeling the business requirements and data, using several database components, such as tables, keys and constraints, without yet regarding how and where the database will be stored.

The last phase of the database design process, is the physical design, which involved mapping the logical design into physical media, taking advantage of the available hardware and software features. This allows the database to be properly maintained and phsyically accessed as quickly as possible using proper indexing.
It is important to correctly design the database from initiation in order to model your business requirements and to take advantage of hardware and software features early in the design cycle of a database application.