Proper physical database design is one of the most important steps a database designer can complete to impact overall database performance. When designing the physical database it is important that the designer understands what type of data will be included and how it will be used. To better understand why this is important, let's first look at some of the basic elements that are important when completing the physical design of your database. One of the most basic measures that needs to be examined and planned most involves the smallest units within the database, the fields. The fields are derived from the simple attributes defined in the logical data model. Some decisions need to be made regarding each of these individual fields. First, what kind of data will be stored in them? The data type assigned to each field must be able to accurately represent every possible valid value, while limiting invalid values ​​as much as possible. You must pay special attention to any manipulations that will be performed on the data as some data types allow these manipulations much more easily than others. When considering data manipulations it is important to keep in mind simple things like addition, if finding the sum of the data field values ​​the data type that worked for the fields may not be large enough to support the resulting sum . Related to the actual data type chosen, there are a number of other controls that can be attached to fields to better ensure data integrity. One of these controls is simply the default value that the field should take, unless it is assigned another value. If done correctly, defining a default value can be very useful as it could…half of paper…grit can be implemented and the performance impact can be minimized. When looking at some of the more advanced design methods mentioned, it's crucial to understand your data and how it's used, and it doesn't hurt to have some tools to help you along the way. Works CitedHoffer, J. (2011) . Modern database management. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.Lightstone, S. (2007). Physical Database Design: Database professional guidance to leverage indexes, views, storage, and more. Amsterdam Boston: Morgan Kaufmann/Elsevier.Konig, AC; Nabar, S. U. (2006). ICDE Proceedings '06: 22nd International Conference on Data Engineering: April 3-7, 2006, Atlanta, Georgia / editors, Roger S. Barga, Xiofang Zhou. Los Alamitos, CA: IEEE Computer Society. Retrieved from: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.portal.lib.fit.edu/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=1617405