Databases Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure 3-4. Tables and relationships for the data center domain
Although denormalization may be a safe thing to do (assuming developers understand
the denormalized model and how it maps to their domain-centric code,
and
have robust
transactional support from the database), it is usually not a trivial task. For the best
results, we usually turn to a true RDBMS expert to munge our normalized model into
a denormalized one aligned with the characteristics of the underlying RDBMS and
physical storage tier. In doing this, we accept that there may be substantial data
redundancy.
We might be tempted to think that all this design-normalize-denormalize effort is ac‐
ceptable because it is a one-off task. This school of thought suggests that the cost of the
work is amortized across the entire lifetime of the system (which includes both devel‐
opment and production) such that the effort of producing a performant relational model
is comparatively small compared to the overall cost of the project. This is an appealing
