Database Organization: Always use Protection

Technology has become a part of our everyday lives. Users interact with multiple devices performing various tasks and exploring different forms of media. With an increase in use of technology, the data accessed by consumers reaches exuberant heights. The data utilized must all be stored in databases. Repetition of data in multiple places of a database increases the size of a database and causes inaccuracy issues to occur when inserting, deleting, and updating data that repeats in multiple places in the table. Normalization breaks data tables into multiple related tables that connect with a repeating foreign key. Because of the foreign key connection, the data ceases to repeat in multiple places in the database in other sections. Repeating the foreign key and assigning a new table relation instead of unnecessarily repeating multiple sections of data increases the reliability of the database as insertion, deletion, and updation errors occur less frequently. 

Database designers design databases in stages called Normal Forms. Normal forms assist with organizing databases by listing guidelines one should follow at different stages of database design. As a database designer moves through the levels of the Normal Forms, a database becomes more organized, reliable, and normalized. The First Normal Form (1NF) reminds the database designer to follow the rule of one. Table columns shall describe only one thing. Rows in a column shall contain only one piece of data. Each row shall describe only one entity. Simple databases easily adapt to the First Normal Form when they hold independent data. 

As databases increase in complexity, dependencies form where one group of information may connect to another group of information. Composite keys involve two foreign keys combining to create the primary key. When two groups of data combine, some of the data may only connect to one of the foreign keys and not the other. The Second normal form (2NF) deals with partial dependencies by creating an intermediary table that extracts the information that relates only to one foreign key and places the data in its own table. Only data that depends on both foreign keys would be placed in the composite key table.

The Third Normal Form (3NF) addresses transitive dependencies by separating tables into independent, related data. When a column depends on the primary key through another column, the category description changes. We fix this issue by making the category its own table. We use a foreign key reference and delete the description in the first table. We only need the description in the new table.

The advantages of 1NF, 2NF, and 3NF enable an organized, optimized, and normalized database that proves less prone to errors. The more data one works with, the more organized the database needs to be. By creating normalized databases, one reduces the cost of operating and maintaining a database.

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