The Tricky Part of Doing Tricky Things in your Data Model

We've mastered the basics of data modeling and data modeling patterns, but what happens when you or a teammate wants to use this one weird trick to improve on the data model and the resulting database design? Have you just discovered a brilliant new trick that no one else has ever thought of? Or will your new design cost you more, take on more risk and cause all kinds of pain for both IT and your business users?

We'll look at a few tricks that we've seen in our database design review and show you how they work and talk about the trade offs for using them. You'll learn about:

Building a database engine inside your database
Designing before understanding your business model
Dealing with data structures that don't do well in RDBMSs
Optimizing the developer versus the data or the app
Using design patterns that don't reflect modern architectures and tools
…and a lot more

Karen Lopez is a Senior Project Manager and Architect at InfoAdvisors. She has 20+ years of experience in project and data management on large, multi-project programs. Karen is a popular speaker known for her highly interactive, practical and sometimes irreverent presentation style. She is a Microsoft SQL Server MVP, She wants you to love your data.

Joseph D'Antoni is an Senior Architect with over a decade of experience working in both Fortune 500 and smaller firms. He is frequent speaker at major tech events, and blogger about all topics technology. He believes that no single platform is the answer to all technology problems. He holds a BS in Computer Information Systems from Louisiana Tech University and an MBA from North Carolina State.