What If the Database Had the Memory of Elephant?
Indeed, the elephants possess memory since they can recognize faces and how to find a particular place. Have you ever given any thought about the memory of the elephant? This animal never forgets the places it visited some years ago.
The elephant has the memory of places since it can recognize other elephants and the way to find a particular place. Over time, they will be able to figure out how to use it in their favor.
But what if your database had such memory?!
The database will store everything which is important for your business, including your customers, your orders, and many other things. You could ask it about anything which happened some years ago and it would give you an accurate answer.
Absolutely fantastic!
The Elephant Never Forgets; Neither Should Your Database!
Think of one instance of an e-commerce website.
At first, the man buys some item. Now after six months, he visits the website for viewing what he had bought previously.
Without any database, it would be quite tough. There would be a need for somebody to look through all the files, Excel sheets, emails, and whatever else is available.
Using a properly designed database, the required information would be available to the person within a few seconds.
Just as an elephant never forgets anything about its known territory, so also would the database never forget about the information it stores.
The reason is simple; indeed a database would never forget anything if it remembers!
How Does a Database Recall Its Experiences?
The elephants do not have to remember every trail every time.
Like that, the database is not a haphazard collection of data wherein it has to look up all the data in connection with every query.
There are some structures within databases to manage their data as follows:
- Tables
- Records
- Relationships
For example, the database in an organization may contain the following data:
- Data of customers
- Product and price details
- Order and payment data
- Data of employees
- Stock data
Indexing of the database will make the job extremely simple, just like finding the correct page in an organized book.
What Will Take Place If the Database Forgot Something?
For example, what will take place when the elephant forgets the location of water in its journey?
Undoubtedly, it will be a big problem.
Similarly, any business will face the problem of forgetting some crucial information.
It might be due to some mistake in the database itself, by deleting something from the database or mistake in the server.
That is why it is vital to back up the database.
Backup is nothing but the copy of everything that is crucial.
Can There Be Too Much Memory in a Database?
In this case, we have a very unusual topic to ponder upon.
Let us consider that the elephant is capable of remembering everything related to its life infinitely.
However, not all things stored in one’s memory are of any value.
This is also true for databases.
Too many non-related entries may cause some problems in relation to the storage and processing of the information.
Therefore, a well-organized database needs to know when to remember and when not to remember.
Management of databases is not only about memory.
Conclusion
The elephant has very high memories capabilities that assist him to find out where he can be located, identify the people, and adapt himself to environmental changes.
Just as the databases do in the world of computers.
The databases help to keep the memories of the clients, to record the process of activities and decision making.
The only thing that differs here is that the elephant uses biological memory while databases utilize data organization and storage.
What if the databases have the memories of the elephant?
Very often it happens to be so.