Common Database Management Challenges and How to Fix Them

8 min read
Nov 12, 2022 4:00:00 PM

Since there are so many alternatives accessible today, selecting the correct database may be difficult in and of itself. Once you get over that one, there are still others to overcome. This blog will examine the most frequent issues faced by database developers and discuss each issue's remedies. 

Databases were a recognized quantity for many years. Similar to how a Ford could be ordered in any color as long as it was black, we always knew which database to utilize to address the next problem. Almost all questions could only be answered by relational databases. 

The scope and breadth of the data we have now is evolving quickly. Over 3 billion smartphones and 20 billion smart gadgets are in use today, and they are all used for data collection, analysis, and sharing. Both figures will treble over the following five years, significantly expanding the quantity of data at our disposal. 

Database models that have stood the test of time since the Bee Gees are finding it difficult to adapt to a world that is becoming more dispersed and dependent on a never-ending supply of data. It is no longer feasible to rely on decisions from the past given the user expectations for applications' capabilities, scope, and complexity's explosive growth. 

Today, there are many different databases accessible, each with their benefits and drawbacks. TransformHub, the best digital transformation solutions company, has listed the most typical database problems here, along with solutions provided by high-quality databases. 

1. Handling Growing Data Volumes While Maintaining Scalability 

Organizations frequently don't have their databases configured to efficiently expand, even while data volumes continue to increase at a rate of 63% on average every month. 

Additionally, to provide greater datasets into databases, specific tools and apps also likely update and query your data more regularly. Your data is becoming more dispersed, your queries are becoming more intricate, and you are defining more connections between your data. All these aspects are not supported by many relational databases. 

You would have to pay to handle and query your growing quantity of data, even though databases are built to expand with your data demands. There is a limit to how far horizontal scaling can go before memory upgrade expenses become unaffordable. 

Is the data your business is keeping truly being used? This is something all enterprises should think about. As your business grows, develop retention policies that limit the quantity of data you retain. To better utilize the storage you have available, you may reduce the quantity of data you retain by removing transitory data from permanent storage, for instance. 

2. The Upkeep of Database Performance 

In addition to being uncomfortable for your team, slow database performance can cause apps to halt and negatively affect your end users. It's critical to address database performance issues as soon as possible in order to give consumers and staff the greatest experience possible. 

High latency in databases frequently correlates with sluggish read/write performance in addition to scalability problems. Scaling your databases that don't require regular updates can be supported by caching to a distant site. If any of your data can only be viewed in read-only mode, this is an excellent approach to offload the database. 

Additionally, you ought to work on enhancing query performance. In some circumstances, doing so could include building indexes to facilitate data retrieval. In other cases, it could entail making use of workers who are more knowledgeable and have more database-related experience. Otherwise, novice users could bring up unforeseen performance snags. 

3. Database Access Concerns 

Depending on your access rights, you can continue to have security problems even if your business sets up and routinely checks database security. 

If you're having problems with database security, you must adopt a least-privilege strategy. By limiting the number of users with access using attribute-based access control, role-based access control, or a mix of the two, you can lessen the risk of insider threats, malware or phishing attacks, and human error that compromises the integrity of your data. Ensure that only users with the necessary abilities have access to maintain top performance. 

Thankfully, not every database requires that you handle access separately. You can govern which access is suitable across many databases based on roles and functions with the aid of a strong infrastructure access platform. 

4. Misconfigured or Incomplete Security 

Without a question, improperly designed security presents a serious threat to databases, especially in cloud environments. Frequently, insufficient cloud security without encryption might leave your data vulnerable to outside threats. Nevertheless, it's simple to neglect proper settings or security fixes while handling several databases. 

Databases that have just been upgraded or installed are more vulnerable to attacks. Database security may be increased by regularly checking and upgrading them; however, these measures are ineffective if your database isn't properly secured. Check your database to see if transparent data encryption (TDE) or tablespace encryption (TSE) is enabled because some databases have encryption turned on by default. 

Additionally, a poorly configured or implemented database can result in both purposeful data loss—from unauthorized access or exporting—and inadvertent data loss—from corruption or insufficient logs. By turning on logging capabilities, businesses may better manage their data, identify and prioritize data problems, and address lost data occurrences. Your team can monitor databases and spot risks before sensitive data is put at risk by using full-stack observability technologies to track data movement, traces, and logs. 

5. Data Integration and Quality Problems 

Your company may encounter database integration problems if data is not standardized. When data types and formats aren't consistent across all sources, it's more challenging to find and aggregate data for searches. Additionally, data silos within your business may result in inadequate datasets, which would lead to inefficient queries that would waste time, resources, and money while also impacting performance. 

Data integration tools come in several varieties. Utilize platforms and solutions that enable rule-based data standardization for each source before integrating them into your data pipeline. Next, use the same standardization techniques for the data that already exists in your database and utilize automation to reduce duplicated or incomplete data. 

Additionally, it's crucial to guarantee that your database is consistently updated with data from all your sources. Automation is essential for data integration, and there are several technologies available that can push data into your database often or in real-time. Although real-time updates for all data might harm performance if your solution isn't ready to accommodate your data, you may still wish to set up integration frequency for various sources. 

6. Limitations on Mitigation & Speed 

Most programs and software contain restrictions. It consists of data servers. Innovative businesses that prioritize transaction volume are familiar with their computer systems, hardware setup, data structure, and catalog components. 

They are aware that any of these might cause data loss, therefore they must embrace the appropriate remedies when they are needed. 

Everyone despises using sluggish computers. It is imperative that you improve your systems if you experience stress each time you attempt to obtain data. Make sure your SQL queries don't have too many joins. 

If this isn't the problem, it's also past time to increase your bandwidth; otherwise, a virus might have infected you. Therefore, you need to create regular database health checks. 

7. Database Size & Management 

Lean databases are quick databases, and vice versa; a larger database will perform worse over time. This frequently occurs without being noticed, so it's crucial to perform routine audits and health checks on your database to keep track of its size and ensure that it doesn't contain any extraneous data. 

Organizations should have clear policies dictating what data to gather, which databases to store it in, and how long to keep it for. Of course, what constitutes "unnecessary data" will vary from one organization to another. This not only helps organizations maintain a decent compliance posture when handling personal information since it enables old data to be cleaned using rules-based automation, but it also keeps the size of databases down. 

As one of the top digital transformation companies, we are aware that data management has benefits and disadvantages. Businesses must understand how much data must be provided and the best method for neutralizing its influence. 

In addition, businesses need to understand how much power should be allocated to localities. The absence of integrated information for all data is one of the main obstacles to managing and building a distributed database. 

8. Data Duplication 

Duplicating data is inevitable as a result of several siloed systems, which are frequent in business travel. 

Travel arrangements, for instance, can be made through an agency and then concurrently show up on the credit card stream. For a total trip cost, these systems must be integrated, which results in a duplicate record. 

Make sure your data source utilizes data deduplication techniques to spot duplicate records together with suitable data verification methods. This will assist you in organizing corporate data and identifying records that may not be identical but do have some similarities. 

9. Unskilled Resources 

There is a severe lack of skilled data management specialists that are available for recruitment right away. 

These skilled professionals are often paid more since they are crucial to any business that must uphold tight data management and protection standards. 

A business that deals with new technology will have to pay for training new hires. Companies must thus do a good job of maintaining these workers when they acquire the necessary skill set. You may hire professionals like TransformHub, to handle your database solution. 

10. Data Analysis 

The data analysis problem is the final but not least one, and we have mastered data management difficulties. 

Despite the high quality of the data, its usability in its raw form is restricted. Technology aids in the analysis of enormous volumes of data, but there are still numerous obstacles to overcome, like appropriately operating the tool and logically extracting data, among others. 

To import data and temporarily change it so that you may analyze it depending on specified parameters, you can utilize several sophisticated tools. 

11. Query optimization 

Poorly written queries are one of the most frequent issues with databases. This might happen as a result of gradual changes made to a database over time, or it can happen because the queries were poorly constructed from the beginning. Whatever the cause, a poor query can have a significant negative influence on stability and performance. 

When troubleshooting queries that aren't performing well, there are a few typical offenders to watch out for. For instance, it could be designed in a way that requires complete index scans for a very basic activity, or it might use too many join operations. While you can manually examine your database operations for inefficiencies, DBAs may find this to be a tedious and time-consuming task. 

Utilizing tools like Quest SQL Optimizer, which can automate most of the process, is frequently simpler. With the aid of tools like these, you can scan your database environment for possibly inefficient SQL statements, test substitutes to gauge their performance, and restructure indexes to increase the speed of your database. 

12. Resource Consumption 

Although the cloud can greatly ease the management and upkeep of your databases, this does not mean that you should completely disregard hardware setup and capacity. The operational costs of your cloud database might easily skyrocket if you initially overestimated its compute and storage requirements. Similar to this, you might discover that capacity needs to be increased as your database expands if the requirements change over the course of its lifetime. 

To make sure that costs and performance are in line with expectations, it's crucial to regularly optimize your storage, compute, and networking configuration while keeping a close eye on how well cloud databases perform and how much resource they use. 

TransformHub: Managing Database Challenges with Confidence  

Database problems increase as data volume increases. However, if you have the necessary resources and are prepared, your company won't need to continually concentrate on preventing database problems. For instance, we may assist in optimizing database administration to provide quick, secure access to databases by implementing a contemporary access control solution from TransformHub, the best digital transformation solutions provider. 

Ultimately, your firm may retain good data quality, strengthen its security posture, and preserve data accessible for your organization by overcoming these typical problems. So get in touch with us right now to start your hassle-free database management adventure.