The process of producing a description of the implementation of the database database on secondary storage is known as physical design.Physical Design describes the
- base relations,
- file design organizations, and
- indexes
used to achieve efficient access to the data, and any associated integrity constraints and security measures.
The physical database design phase allows the designer to make decisions on how the database is to be implemented.
Therefore, physical design is tailored to a specific DBMS. There is feedback between physical and logical design, because decisions taken during physical design for improving performance may affect the logical data model.