Re: over-normalized?

A valid point. But say, what if an primary key, such as, employee number has to be changed, or reused? Aaaah!!!

Forget it. Typed that in just for arguments sake ;-)

Thanks
Raj

                                                                                                                    
                    Jared.Still_at_r                                                                                   
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                    January 23,                                                                                     
                    2003 01:40 PM                                                                                   
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> An update could end up
> having to write to multiple tables. So, I guess, you have to walk the
tight
> rope between these issues, and having a perfectly normalized database.

You might want to rethink that statement. The goal of a relational database is to have no redundant data.

If you have to update multiple tables in a transaction, so what?

That is certainly preferable to being required to ferret out all the tables that store the same information, and must therefore be updated together, as in a denormalized database.

Jared

Rajesh.Rao_at_jpmchase.com
Sent by: root_at_fatcity.com
 01/23/2003 09:15 AM
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        Subject:        Re: over-normalized?

How many join table operations do you perform, in most of the queries? As more tables are added to the join, you take a performance hit? Plus, all the space for the indexes on the additional tables? An update could end up having to write to multiple tables. So, I guess, you have to walk the tight
rope between these issues, and having a perfectly normalized database.

To quote George Koch "No major application will run in third normal form".

Raj

                    "Saira Somani"
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                    root_at_fatcity.c
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                    January 23,
                    2003 11:00 AM
                    Please respond
                    to ORACLE-L

Is there such thing as an over-normalized database design? What defines over-normalization? And what are its consequences? (Other than the obvious degraded database performance and lots of tuning)

I hear rumblings that our ERP system is over-normalized.

Just curious,

Thanks!

Saira Somani
IT Support/Analyst
Hospital Logistics Inc.

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