The computer in the previous example would be connected to a database, and all of the information about each book would be stored in that database. A database is just that, a mechanism for storing information. What makes it powerful is the ability to use that information.
Technologies such as Microsoft’s SQL Server and Oracle’s MySQL are two very popular examples of database technologies in use today. Others include MongoDB, PostgreSQL, Microsoft Access, and MariaDB.
A database is just a blank canvas of a storage mechanism at first. It can be designed to hold a variety of types of information, and subtle differences in how the structure of each table is implemented can have dramatic effects on the functionality and performance of the application that utilizes the database. For example, in Microsoft SQL Server there a data types called tinyint, smallint, int, and bigint – if you aren’t familiar with the differences it could be very easy to misuse, which could cause further issues down the line.
There are programming languages specific to databases, which are how you query the database to insert, update, remove, and retrieve the data. If not programmed correctly, these query languages can be misused and leave your application open to potentially disastrous security issues. For example, a common term you may have heard of is something called “SQL Injection”. This is the practice where, if code is not written correctly, someone with malicious intent can modify the code that was written to perform a task on a database and have it perform a completely different task, such as deleting all records or displaying someone’s personal information. Poorly written database programming that is vulnerable to SQL Injection and other attacks is something which we find in code for existing projects that we take on more commonly than you may expect.
The items mentioned above are just a couple of the reasons why it is important to have a skilled database expert work on your project. At Kaimika we frequently work with clients who have existing database driven applications that either can’t scale as needed, aren’t optimized for performance or security, or just need to be expanded or changed to accommodate different workloads. If you’re looking to extend, enhance, optimize or fix your application’s database, let’s chat and see if our database expertise can be the right fit for your requirements.
