When setting up a database, one of the most difficult stages is that of picking the programming language to use. There are so many options to go with and not all of them will guarantee the reliability you deserve. However, making the decision to work with Python could be one of the best choices you will ever make.
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Python is a general purpose programming language that is distinguished by its high readability when compared to other languages. The programming language is also more efficient because programmers use fewer lines of code to achieve their objectives. The language is highly preferred by programmers because it is open source, helps accelerate code development, has innumerable resources to help programmers solve problems and also offers advanced data structures like sets, tuples, lists, dictionaries and more.
All in all, creating a database with Python does not guarantee that your website will never have any problem in the future. There are a number of database management practices you need to consider to ensure that your Python database runs smoothly.
Optimise your staffing
The most important thing you need to do in database management is to optimise your staffing. This means you need well organised and highly trained and experienced teams to help with your database needs. Your staffs will also need to be trained to equip them with more skills that enable them to leverage on the new technologies as well as reinforce their management strategies. You need a team that is able to quickly identify problems and resolve them effectively.
It is also important that you assign tasks to your team so that everyone knows who is supposed to be working on what. Do not just hire a single person to handle your database management needs. You need a team.
Staffing issues are what contribute to most of the challenges in database management. Do you have high data entry staff turnover? Are you straining your existing resources? If you answered yes to any of these questions, it is time to find better ways of motivating your team.
Review the products and performance regularly
Keeping a close eye on the products involved in the management of your database is the most important thing. Start by looking at what is installed, where it is installed and how it is being managed. It is highly recommended to engage in product assessment at least once every three months. This will enable you to track the rate of change as well as enable you to comprehensively understand infrastructure expansion. It is only with close monitoring that you will be able to act proactively and prevent total system failure.
Regular reviews will further enable you to prevent any unauthorised augmentation of your database. Needless to say, this can negatively affect the performance of your database or even put it at great risk. To closely monitor the database, the DBAs need to maintain a physical as well as logical models of the database. This will be their baseline so that they are able to identify unauthorised changes with ease and fix them as quickly as possible.
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Poor documentation is what causes delays in most problem resolutions. Therefore, whether you are working with onsite or remote DBA experts, it is imperative that you ensure they have the physical and logical models documentation.
Improve the performance of critical applications
The challenge that most organisations have is that of the performance of their essential applications. The improper configuration or poorly planned database layouts as well as the lack of proper understanding of the performance are some of the challenges most businesses face.
To prevent performance issues, the first thing that ought to be done is to come up with a good indexing strategy. This is also a crucial step in making sure that the organisation is ready for big data. It is up to your team to constantly review the indexes based on your usage. The unused, duplicate and missing indexes need to be removed else they will bloat the database.
All in all, before you start deleting anything from your database, take time to double-check that they are not needed. You must also ensure that you backup your database before you start deleting the unneeded indexes.
Fix the data integration problems
Data integration problems are the main issues that DBAs get to deal with. These issues have been around since the introduction of new data sources, such as the Internet of Things, social media and the Cloud. This has led to application with both structured and unstructured data that is stored in different locations. This has worsened the problem.
Picking a data warehouse environment is the key to resolving most of the integration issues. You need to come up with standard operating procedures that will enable you to convert from one data format to the desired format. Investing in the right software will further speed up the process. What you need to resolve data integration issues is the right architecture and tools.
In addition to that, you need to implement data auditing processes, which should have clear responsibilities. This will enable you to guarantee superior data quality. The data needs to be cleaned before being converted and integrated.
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Take security seriously
Security threats are probably the main causes of database problems. The last thing you want is for hackers to gain access to the crucial data of your customers. This will not only expose you to legal issues but also tarnish your company’s reputation. The best way forward is to ensure that security problems never take place. This will only be achieved with a stringent strategy in security management.
You must check the applications that are accessing your database and ensure they are updated to tighten security. Encrypting communications between the apps and the Cloud through SSL will further improve the security of your Python database.
The key to guaranteeing the security of your Python database is making sure that you constantly check the database for problems and keep up with the trends in database management. You can also outsource the work to a third party for personalised support.
Sujain Thomas is a data IT professional who works closely with remote DBA experts to provide her clients with fantastic DBA services to solve their data problems. She enjoys writing on database administration services and other topics in the IT field. She has contributed on sites like business2community.com, sociable.co, thematosoup.com etc