by noah | May 26, 2022 | Database
A well-designed database will provide you with accurate, up-to-date information. This is why it’s important to understand good design principles, as the correct design is essential to achieving your goals. Whether you plan on creating your own database using Microsoft Access, or hiring a database programming company, it’s helpful to know the basics of good database design.
What is Good Database Design?
Certain principles lead the database design process. The first principle is to avoid duplicate information. Why? Because duplicate information wastes space and increases the chances for errors.
The second principle refers to the completeness and accuracy of the data. If your database contains inaccurate or incomplete information, you will not be able to trust your reports. Furthermore, any decisions you make might be made on faulty information.
With these two principles in mind, good database design should include the following:
- Subject-based tables to reduce redundancy
- Ability to accommodate multiple users at once
- Accurate, complete information
- Well-protected from crashes, hacks and accidental deletion
- Supports data processing and reporting needs
What Does the Design Process Look Like?
The design process involves the following steps:
- Determine the purpose of your database
- Find and organize the information you plan to record in the database
- Divide the information into tables
- Decide what information you want to store in each table
- Choose each table’s primary keys
- Set up table relationships based on how each table is related to the other
- Analyze your database to make sure you’re getting accurate reports
- Apply data normalization rules to see if your tables are structured correctly
Design Your Database Today
To ensure your database is properly designed, many people are involved in the process. At Arkware, we have a team of database developers and database administrators. Our database developers are responsible for designing and developing the database, while our database administrators check the database and provide maintenance work.
To discuss your upcoming database project, contact Arkware today.
by noah | May 16, 2022 | MS Access
Databases are a useful tool for construction companies. By using a database, businesses that work in construction can take a proactive approach to data collection and management. This way, they can have the edge over their competitors, ensuring they take advantage of every available opportunity.
If you work in the construction industry and are looking for cost-effective database solutions, look no further than Arkware. We are offering our clients a free Microsoft Access Construction Job Management template to help track customers and construction jobs. Let’s learn more about the benefits of using a database and what to expect from our FREE template!
Importance of Databases in the Construction Industry
One of the hardest parts about working in the construction industry is the competition. The construction industry faces tough competition when it comes to securing contracts. But without contracts, you can’t reach your goals, so it’s important to manage your resources with care. This is where a database management tool becomes especially important.
The benefits to having a database include:
- Manage current and upcoming construction projects, including cost
- Store the names of construction companies, vendors and subcontractors
- Make predictions about how conditions may change in the future, such as weather, timelines and schedules
- Oversee when materials are expected to be delivered
- Track productivity to attract and retain top talent
- Manage disputes and complaints involving your company
Why Choose Arkware’s Construction Job Management Template
Arkware is a leader in database programming, and we’re pleased to offer a free database template that can be used by any size organization in the construction industry. It is a full, working template that is simple and easy to modify. We made sure to provide clients with a comfortable layout, easy navigation and buttons to activate a number of built-in features.
The features that are included with this template include:
- Customer tracking
- Job management tracking
- Customer and work order search
- Job tracking estimator
- Assign crews to jobs
- Payments and customer statements
- Contract revenue and invoice reports
- And much more!
To obtain your free copy of our Construction Job Management template, visit this page or get in touch with Arkware at 877-519-4537. We look forward to helping your construction company stay organized, remain competitive and increase profits!
by noah | Apr 16, 2022 | Database
In many large applications, data is divided into ‘partitions’ that can be managed separately. Partitioning can optimize performance and improve scalability, which is why database administrators choose it. However, the partition strategy must be chosen carefully to maximize the benefits and reduce the risk for adverse effects.
Let’s learn more about what it means to partition data and the different design strategies to choose from.
Why Partition Data?
Partitioning data is the technique of distributing data across multiple tables. Here are some of the reasons why you might want to partition your own data.
- Improve scalability. When you scale up your database, you’ll eventually reach your hardware limit. By partitioning data, you can scale out your system almost indefinitely because each partition is hosted on a separate server.
- Enhance performance. Data spread across partitions covers a smaller volume of data. This can make your system more efficient. Even operations that affect multiple partitions can be run simultaneously.
- Increase security. Partitions give you the option to separate sensitive and non-sensitive data into different sections. You can then apply different security controls to each.
- Greater flexibility. You have a lot more options when you partition your data. You can maximize administrative efficiency, minimize cost and define strategies for backup and restoration.
- Improve availability. Separating data across multiple servers gives you greater availability. If one partition is unavailable, you can still access data on the other partitions.
What are the Options for Designing Partitions
When it comes to partitioning data, there are three main methods:
- Horizontal partitioning. With horizontal partitioning, also known as sharding, each partition is a separate data store, but they all have the same schema.
- Vertical partitioning. In this strategy, each partition holds a subset of the fields for items in the data store. The fields are separated based on their pattern of use.
- Functional partitioning. This strategy aggregates data based on how it is used by each bounded context in the system. For example, an online shop might store invoice data in one partition and customer information in another.
Keep in mind that you don’t have to choose just one partition strategy – you can combine them all. To determine which partitioning strategy is right for you, contact Arkware today. We can help you answer this question and consider all options when designing a partitioning scheme.
by noah | Apr 6, 2022 | Database
Any custom database application that sees significant growth will eventually need to scale in order to handle an increase in traffic. It’s important that this is done in a way that protects the integrity and security of the data. For this reason, many database management companies recommend sharding.
Sharded databases have received a lot of attention in recent years, but this doesn’t mean that they’re right for everyone. In this article, we’ll go into greater detail regarding sharded databases so that you can have a clear idea of what they are and if they’re right for your organization.
What is Sharding?
Sharding is a database architecture pattern that’s similar to horizontal partitioning, which is the practice of separating one table’s rows into multiple different tables. These tables are known as ‘partitions.’ Each partition has the same schema and columns, but entirely different rows. The data contained in each row is unique and independent of the data contained in other partitions.
The purpose of sharding is to break data up into smaller chunks. This way, your application can make fewer queries. For instance, when your database receives a request, the application will know where to send the request. It has far less data to look through because it doesn’t have to go through the whole database.
Sharding Architectures
There are a few different ways you can shard your database. It’s important that everything is set up correctly, as you want your queries to go to the correct shard. Otherwise, you could end up with slow queries and lost data.
Key based sharding
Key based sharding uses a value taken from newly written data and plugs it into a ‘hash function’ to determine which shard the data should go to. This method is common and can protect data from uneven distribution.
Range based sharding
Range based sharding involves sharding data based on ranges of a given value. It’s simple to implement, but it doesn’t protect data from being distributed unevenly.
Directory based sharding
Directory based sharding requires you to create and maintain a ‘lookup table’ to keep track of which shard holds which data. The benefit to this method is that it’s flexible.
Database sharding can be a great solution if you’re looking to scale your database horizontally. To learn more about sharding, if it’s right for you and the best architecture to use, contact Arkware today.
by noah | Mar 24, 2022 | Uncategorized
World Backup Day is observed every year on the last day of March. Even though you should be backing up your files all the time – not just on World Backup Day – this day starts the conversation regarding the importance of backing up your data.
In today’s security landscape, there are more threats to data than ever before. Between corruption, malware and cyberattacks from cyber criminals, hardware and human failure, businesses and organizations must be proactive with their security, not reactive.
In observance of World Backup Day, here are four interesting facts you need to know.
1. You may already have a virus on your computer.
Most people assume that an attack could never happen to them, but it only takes a second for this to change. Consider that 29% of data loss cases are caused by accident, 30% of computers are already infected with malware and 113 phones are lost or stolen every minute.
If you wait until something happens to react, it’s going to be too late. Be proactive by backing up your data and putting security measures in place. Your customers, your employees and your organization’s livelihood depend on it.
2. There is no single way to backup your data.
There is no one ‘right’ way to backup your data. You can use online backup services, an external hard drive, a computer backup, etc. Find a system that works for you and stick with it. If you do choose to backup your data to a physical location like a hard drive, make sure it’s stored properly.
Microsoft Access makes it easy to backup your database. Simply follow the instructions and you can choose where to save your backup. We also recommend encrypting your database, though this is not enough on its own.
3. 40% of small businesses won’t reopen after data loss.
It’s a grim finding – 40% of small businesses do not reopen following a disaster, and another 25% fail within one year. Certainly, you do not want the same future for your business. Protect your livelihood by backing up your data regularly. If there is human error or hardware failure, you can revert back to the original data and avoid a costly disaster.
4. Hardware failure and human error are the main causes of data loss.
Even though cyber attacks are on the rise, the two main causes of data loss are hardware failure and human error. Hardware accounts for about 35-40% of data loss, while human error is responsible for another 29%. The solution is simple: backup your data to protect your business or organization from financial and security risks.
Backing up your data is an important part of working with complex information. To discuss your backup options and how to keep your data safe, contact Arkware today.
