Database Optimization for Web Applications

Web applications are more accessible than ever, and with optimization of load time across different browsers and devices, end users are beginning to expect the best experience when they visit and interact with your web application. Responsive methodologies optimize presentation loading time and data-driven content for the end user. Optimizing your company’s database and its queries will help the load time and alleviate the server load, which includes requests per second and memory allocation.

From a software company’s perspective, the relational database most often serves as the core of data-driven software applications, and lack of database optimization in such a key area can incur significant costs to both the client and the company. Managing inventory, customer data, orders, and other processes can quickly become a lot of data to query and calls for an optimized Structured Query Language (SQL) that will quickly pull the most pertinent data from the database and deliver it in a timely manner. Rewriting queries that use the Wildcard (*) to parse through the whole database, that use SELECT to unnecessarily select all columns, or fail to properly index, can easily be optimized to give your web application the information needed that will take up less of your hardware resources in a lower load time. Stakeholders in eCommerce take careful consideration of these high numbers and adeptly optimize their page load through image optimization and their use of JavaScript and CSS, but the best database managers and developers make sure to build a scalable and easily queried database.

It’s well known that virtually every human being in the Western world interacts with a database management system of some kind on a daily basis—often without using a personal computer at any time throughout the day. Taking time to invest in properly designing, building, and querying your database will ultimately be the best foundation and preventative measure to take when creating or updating your web application with timely responsiveness in mind.