Pro business tips: How to properly manage your database
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In the modern business world, the database is an aspect of invaluable importance: without a good and reliable database, your business will come to a standstill. It doesn’t matter if you are running a small enterprise or large corporation: if you do not take care of your database, it becomes obsolete and unusable. This means that any data stored in it can’t be retrieved and this, in turn, means that you have to start from scratch with everything. Here is how to properly manage your database.
Data denormalization
When you are dealing with data that will be accessed frequently, the most convenient way to go is the denormalization of your database. By this approach, all tables that store related information will have identical fields; however, depending on which table each field is placed in, different additional features may be included.
Thus you can avoid having a time-consuming JOIN operation every single time when your application needs to retrieve some information. There can also be multiple levels of database denormalization, but make sure not to overdo it: if there is too much redundant information in your database you might find yourself facing performance issues due to various types of overhead.
Inappropriate data storage
Even though it might seem like a good idea at first glance, never use multiple columns for storing the same type of data. If you do so, your database will be complicated and difficult to work with: there will always be a chance that you may forget to update one of them during some operations, which might result in your enterprise losing valuable information it should have had.
As a result, you should treat all data fields equally: this will allow you to be sure that when you are updating your database, the change is going to affect all relevant columns.
Geographic information systems
When it comes to geographic information, you need to make sure that whatever engine you are using has excellent support for spatial data. However, this doesn’t mean that only geographic features can be stored in such databases: just like any other relational database software, GIS engines have their limitations and they might not prove useful if your business needs a different type of functionality.
All in all, whether or not the current GIS application on the market fits your needs largely depends on what exactly your enterprise does regarding processing spatial information from around the world.
Do not over-normalize
When creating your database, you will need to know that it is a great idea to pre-define the tables beforehand, so that every single type of information has its own column in one table.
However, this doesn’t mean that you should create a table for each and every type of data your business might want to store: if you have an excessive number of columns they are likely to result in some performance issues due to over-normalization. Thus make sure not to go overboard with creating new tables and modifying your existing ones, or you might face more trouble than good.
Modern database storage development
If you are developing applications that include databases stored over more than one server, make sure to store them on several databases (do not mix relational and NoSQL ones). This approach will help you improve performance: if each separate network node has its own database, they can all function independently without interfering with each other. The only thing you’ll need is to link the data together from various sources to avoid duplicates and inconsistencies.
As a result, you’ll be able to maximize the productivity of your entire enterprise and enjoy a much smoother workflow.
Single responsibility principle
All columns in a table are usually responsible for storing only one type of data. If one of them is used to store some other info, you will have to write additional code that performs checks and makes sure that everything is in order. This approach will make your database complicated and difficult to manage: there’s always the chance that you’ll forget about such fields or – even worse – manipulate the wrong data during an operation.
To avoid these issues, it is better if all information would be stored in separate tables (like they should be). However, this is not always possible due to various limitations/restrictions imposed by physical databases which require a certain amount of overhead to compensate for their inability to handle more than one requirement at a time.
In any case, make sure to avoid single-purpose columns as much as you can.
Unit testing
The more complex your database is, the harder it will be to test and debug everything. So if you are developing an enterprise application or, generally speaking, trying to come up with some new software that includes a database – think about how its testing process can improve. Usually, this means having some kind of automated unit tests prepared beforehand; however, if there is no such possibility available – don’t give up just yet.
Even if you have to manually check each module in order to make sure that everything works correctly with the database – do it! Make sure that every aspect of it is well-documented so future changes/updates won’t result in any problems later on (if you’ve ever faced troubles like these before, you already know how important it is to have proper documentation).
If you are looking to buy a new database, be sure to choose the one that is suited for your business
Before you buy a new database, it’s necessary that you check whether it’s compatible with your other computer equipment (especially if you are using Windows operating system). If your database is not compatible or of the wrong format/firmware, then you have to find another one. And this means more time and money wasted because you’ll have to reinstall everything from scratch. File conversion can be quite costly (depending on how many programs were damaged) and time-consuming as well. So do some research first before making a purchase.
Photo by Caspar Camille Rubin on Unsplash
The database is the backbone of any successful business. That’s why it’s so important to understand how to properly manage your database and avoid making common mistakes that can cause downtime or worse, data loss. For example, geospatial information systems should not be normalized with other types of geographic data because this will cause inconsistencies between what is stored on a map and how it is queried through SQL databases. Modern Database Storage Development has eliminated the need for denormalization which was previously needed when designing tables for relational databases using duplicate entries across multiple columns or rows (e.g., storing one entry per row).
