Databases

When a database contains dozens of millions of records, well thought database structure, indexing and queries definitely make difference between, especially when it comes to performance

When projecting data structures, we are very strict about normalization rules, enforcing foreign keys and avoiding redundancies - which results maximally optimized data structures which are in most cases self-explanatory.

Our rich SQL experience is very important when it comes to data mining and complex database tasks which can result in queries whose execution times are roughhy 1 hour (when optimized) or 1 day (non optimized).

Our experience is mostly related to MS SQL, though we have also worked a lot with mySQL, and to a bit lesser extent with Oracle, DB2 and Postgres.

When it comes to database scripting / release management, all DB changes we perform are scripted and documented, so the release process can be fully automated.

When working with sensitive data (financial or medical records) we are very strict about encryption and access rights.

FInally, we also deal with DB maintenance tasks, such as automating backup, index maintenance and fine tuning.