One of the most common reasons for software applications’ failures is running a database with errors. As a software developer, you might be given a project that you need to design from scratch.
In such situations, you will try as much as you can to make sure that you have followed all the required guidelines to design the database to avoid some common database errors.
However, in some situations, you might get an already existing project to work on. The original developers might have rushed the database design, leaving many errors and making the project fail.
In such a situation, you might find it very difficult to work on the project without having to first fix the database errors.
The sole purpose of designing a database is to make sure that an application can easily store and access data. It is, therefore, very crucial for developers to ensure that they have designed good databases.
This is because all the application data – might be about a company and its operations – is stored in the database.
There are a number of common database errors every developer needs to avoid when designing and working on databases. They include;
Poor Normalization
Different software developers might design different databases following all normalization rules and regulations and still come up with databases whose data layout is different. This depends on their creativity. However, some techniques must be followed, no matter how creative a database designer might be.
Some designers fail to follow the basic normalization principles, leading to errors when doing data queries. Every data should be normalized to at least the third normal form.
If you are given a project whose database is not normalized to any form, then you should design the tables again. This will help your project in the future.
The N+1 Problem
This is a common problem that occurs when one needs to display the contents of the children in parent-child relationships.
Lazy loading is usually enabled in Object-Relational Mappings by default. This means that queries are issued to the parent and a single query to each of the child records. With this, running N+1 queries means that a database would be flooded with more queries.
Database designers can solve this error through eager loading. This allows them to defer an object’s initialization until that time when the object is needed. By doing this, they will have improved the efficiency of the operations of their databases and applications at large.
Redundancy
This is one of the most common database errors that developers struggle with, especially when they are forced to keep different versions of the same data updated.
Even though it is required in some designs due to different requirements of an application, it should be clearly documented and used only in the situations where it must be used.
Redundancy leads to inconsistent data, large database sizes, data corruption, and inefficient databases. To avoid all these problems, developers need to make sure that they have thoroughly followed all the normalization guidelines.
Problems with Service Manager Server
Sometimes, you might get a database error indicating that the service manager server is not running. This is a common problem that new developers might find difficult to handle.
The first thing to do when you run through this error is to, of course, check whether the server is running. If it is, then try connecting again via the service manager.
If your login credentials are wrong, the service manager will require you to enter the correct credentials. To ensure that this does not happen again, modify the program so that your credentials are automatically accepted.
Ignoring Data Requirements
We create databases to store data that we can consume when the need arises. It is, therefore, an expectation to store and retrieve the data easily and efficiently.
Some designers start working on a database without knowing the kind of data that it will store, how and when the data will be retrieved, and how it will be used. This creates more problems later when the project is done.
To avoid errors caused by data requirements, developers should understand the data system and its purpose before they start designing the database.
This will help them when choosing the right database engine, the format, and size of records, the database entities, and the required management policies.
Avoiding database errors and updating I.T. services helps in improving the productivity of any business. In addition, a good database will help any developer when it comes to saving storage space and avoiding issues with their applications.
It also helps in making sure that data is reliable, precise and makes it possible for them to access the data in different ways. Finally, it is easy to maintain, use, and modify when they need to make changes.
