DatabasesIntermediate
Denormalization
Pronunciationdee-NOR-mal-ih-ZAY-shun
Definition
Denormalization is the intentional introduction of redundancy into a database schema to improve read performance at the cost of slower writes and larger storage size.
Where you hear it
In database design meetings, performance tuning sessions, and when scaling applications with high read traffic.
Examples
We added a duplicated
user_namecolumn to the orders table to avoid a costly join.Denormalization improved our dashboard query speed by reducing the number of table scans.
Common mistake
Thinking that denormalization is always bad because it breaks database normalization rules, when in reality it is a standard practice for read-heavy systems.