ORACLE DB Design on Client/Server

We are having an outside firm build a new ORACLE 7 database application for us, which will run on IBM WINDOWS-NT Client/Servers. The application will replace two existing INGRES database applications. At this point the firm is designing the database, screens and reports on paper only. We need to give them feedback on whether to make any revisions or to proceed to implement the system. Please excuse the simplicity of these questions since we are not familiar with ORACLE on IBM PC Client/Servers. [Quoted] 1. Are there good reasons to build the system with ORACLE 7 rather than ORACLE 8?
[Quoted] 2. Is the Entity-Relationship Model the method of choice for designing this [Quoted] type of database? What other choices are there? What are the advantages and disadvantages?
[Quoted] 3. Is it recommended to de-normalize tables by splitting them up into smaller tables in order to obtain efficient performance in this type of system?
[Quoted] 4. Is it preferable to have the "primary key" for each table to contain (or consist of) a counter rather than have a combination of meaningful fields? [Quoted] If a row depends on multiple fields, should the "primary key" be defined as unique and consist of all those fields, or is it enough to define it as the first field which would be almost unique? [Quoted] 5. Is it recommended to add "foreign keys" to tables to facilitate all anticipated one-to-many joins? What about building tables consisting only [Quoted] of "primary keys" from two other tables to facilitate many-to-many joins?

Thank you for your attention to these questions. Sincerely,
Rivka Fishman and Simcha Book
Ministry of Health, Israel Received on Fri Sep 12 1997 - 00:00:00 CEST