---
title: "SurrealDB Fundamentals | SurrealDB University"
description: "Explore SurrealDB courses covering database fundamentals, data modelling, querying, and real-world applications. Learn at your own pace with hands-on exercises."
url: https://surrealdb.com/learn/fundamentals
---

[Back to Courses](https://surrealdb.com/learn)

Course chapters

[SurrealDB Fundamentals](https://surrealdb.com/learn/fundamentals) [Introduction](https://surrealdb.com/learn/fundamentals) [Welcome to SurrealDB University](https://surrealdb.com/learn/fundamentals/intro/welcome) [Intro to SurrealDB](https://surrealdb.com/learn/fundamentals/intro/surrealdb) [Why SurrealQL is SQL-like](https://surrealdb.com/learn/fundamentals/intro/surrealql) [Part 1: Schemaless CRUD](https://surrealdb.com/learn/fundamentals/schemaless) [Introduction](https://surrealdb.com/learn/fundamentals/schemaless) [Record IDs](https://surrealdb.com/learn/fundamentals/schemaless/record-ids) [Inserting data](https://surrealdb.com/learn/fundamentals/schemaless/inserting-data) [Reading data](https://surrealdb.com/learn/fundamentals/schemaless/reading-data) [Updating data](https://surrealdb.com/learn/fundamentals/schemaless/updating-data) [Deleting data](https://surrealdb.com/learn/fundamentals/schemaless/deleting-data) [Part 2: Adding relationships](https://surrealdb.com/learn/fundamentals/relationships) [Introduction](https://surrealdb.com/learn/fundamentals/relationships) [Graph relations](https://surrealdb.com/learn/fundamentals/relationships/graph-relations) [Record links](https://surrealdb.com/learn/fundamentals/relationships/record-links) [Relational style joins](https://surrealdb.com/learn/fundamentals/relationships/relational-style) [Part 3: Making it schemafull](https://surrealdb.com/learn/fundamentals/schemafull) [Introduction](https://surrealdb.com/learn/fundamentals/schemafull) [Define tables, views and changefeeds](https://surrealdb.com/learn/fundamentals/schemafull/define-table) [Define fields, constraints and assertions](https://surrealdb.com/learn/fundamentals/schemafull/define-fields) [Schemafull CRUD](https://surrealdb.com/learn/fundamentals/schemafull/schemafull-crud) [Part 4: Making it secure](https://surrealdb.com/learn/fundamentals/security) [Introduction](https://surrealdb.com/learn/fundamentals/security) [Authentication](https://surrealdb.com/learn/fundamentals/security/authentication) [Query capabilities](https://surrealdb.com/learn/fundamentals/security/query-capabilities) [Part 5: Making it performant](https://surrealdb.com/learn/fundamentals/performance) [Introduction](https://surrealdb.com/learn/fundamentals/performance) [Indexing & data model considerations](https://surrealdb.com/learn/fundamentals/performance/index-data-model) [Deployment & storage layer considerations](https://surrealdb.com/learn/fundamentals/performance/deployment-storage) [Completion](https://surrealdb.com/learn/fundamentals/completion) Certification Pending completion

# SurrealDB Fundamentals

Hi, I'm Alexander, welcome to the SurrealDB Fundamentals course!

The goal of this course is to help you build your idea as soon as possible.

To achieve that, we'll do a quick intro to multi-model databases, then go through the five fundamental parts of building a production-ready database:

- Part 1: Rapid prototyping using schemaless CRUD
- Part 2: Adding relationships between tables
- Part 3: Making it schemafull to ensure consistency
- Part 4: Making it secure (because you don't want data leaks)
- Part 5: Making it performant (because time is money)

Each part primarily focuses on practical hands-on learning with concepts explained in context instead of the typical boring slides and annoying quizzes.

You'll find both video and text so you can pick the mode of learning that works best for you.

All the queries we'll explore are runnable and are found right next to the text or video in the embeddable query interface for our UI known as [SurrealDB Studio](https://surrealdb.com/studio). This means you don't need to install anything and can always follow along with what is happening.

If at any point you're wondering, "What if I do X?" go right ahead and try it in the editor. You can always adjust any query that is shown or try out new ones.

## Surreal Deal Store

The database we'll build throughout this course is the [Surreal Deal Store](https://surrealdb.com/docs/explore/tutorials/demos/surreal-deal-store), which you might have seen in our documentation, blogs, or YouTube videos.

Each of the parts of the schema and their connections below represents a different data type or query method in SurrealDB. Once you're done the course, you'll be able to come back to it and know exactly which is which.

A lot of thought has been put into making this as useful as possible for learning the various features and patterns everyone should be aware of. It was created to be realistic and production-like, but also simplified such that it's not overwhelming to learn.

That is also why we've broken it down into five parts, so that we start simple and gradually work our way into the full database you see here.

We'd advise you to go through each step in sequence as that is how you'll learn the fastest and avoid massive jumps in complexity, which might leave you confused.

Even if you're already an experienced developer, doing each step will plug the gaps in your knowledge the fastest.

By the end of this course you should be comfortable enough with SurrealDB and SurrealQL to start building your idea.

## Feedback and support

You can [join our Discord](https://discord.gg/surrealdb) for support, where you'll also find many members of the SurrealDB team — `#help`, `#general`, and `#surrealql` are good places to start.

If you have any feedback about the course, reach out at [education@surrealdb.com(mailto:education@surrealdb.com)](mailto:education@surrealdb.com) or on Discord (`#help` or `#general` work well for course feedback too).

We take feedback very seriously and will try our best to fix it!

Get started

Welcome to SurrealDB University

[Get started](https://surrealdb.com/learn/fundamentals/intro/welcome)

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