Databases are designed in different ways. Most of the time we can use “school examples”: normalize the database and everything will work just fine. But there are situations that will require another approach. We can remove references to gain more flexibility. But what if we have to improve performance when everything was done by the book? In that case, denormalization is a technique that we should consider. In this article, we’ll discuss the benefits and disadvantages of denormalization and what situations may warrant it.

Sooner or later there comes a moment when database performance is no longer satisfactory. One of the very first things you should turn to when that happens is database indexing. This article will give you a general overview on what indexes are without digging into too much detail. We’ll discuss additional database index topics in future articles. In general, a database index is a data structure used to improve queries execution time.

Some time ago, the Vertabelo Team participated in the PostgreSQL Conference Europe 2013. Some of the talks were really nice. One of them stuck in my head for quite a long time. It was Markus Winand’s lecture titled “Indexes: The neglected performance all-rounder.” Although I had had a solid background in databases, this 50 minutes long talk showed me that not everything concerning indexes was as clear to me as I had thought.