Synopsis: Metadata Tribbles
Explore why adding multiple year-based columns in a Customers table increases complexity and degrades performance. Understand how to structure databases to support scalability and avoid logical antipatterns that waste resources. Discover when archiving and splitting data are appropriate strategies to maintain efficient queries as data volume grows.
In this lesson, you will see a case showing how a database design creates more work.
Creating the Customers table
My friend worked for years as a programmer in Oracle PL/SQL and Java. She described a case that showed how a database design that was intended to simplify work instead created more work.
The Sales division at her company maintained a table Customers that kept data such as customers’ contact information, their business type, and how much revenue had been ...