denormalization

Definitions

1. The deliberate introduction of redundancy into a database schema to improve read performance, trading storage space and write complexity for faster queries. Common denormalization techniques include adding computed columns, duplicating frequently-joined data, and creating summary tables. It's a controlled violation of normalization rules done with full awareness of the tradeoffs.

   In plain English: Intentionally duplicating data across database tables to make reading faster — the opposite of normalization, done on purpose when speed matters more than tidiness.

   Example: We denormalized the order table to include the customer name directly, eliminating a join that was killing our checkout API's response time.

Related Terms

• foreign key
• normalization
• sharding key
• Jemalloc
• Memory Arena
• RocksDB
• Static Dispatch
• Write Concern