Advantage Systems

The Database Design is the core of your custom software application. A poor database design will be difficult to manage, perform poorly and be difficult to extract data for reporting purposes.

One of the most common pitfalls in designing an application is to build a "perfect" database model then force the user to enter data through a system that accommodates the database design. This bottom up approach to application design makes data entry difficult.

Advantages Systems takes a top down tiered approach to your database model. We design the forms first, add in the cursors to support the forms, then feed the database through the cursors. This is the best of both worlds as your application will have a solid database design and data entry screens that meet your business objectives. Given the database is not intertwined into the forms, we can easily support different database technologies, such as Visual FoxPro or SQL Server using the same application code. We can even expose your database to different front end applications such as a desktop based application and a web based application.

Researching database design leads to a plethora of database terminology: Object Oriented Database Design, Relational Database Design, Hierarchical Database Design, Normalized Databases, De-Normalized Databases, Indexes, Foreign Keys, Referential Integrity... and the list goes on and on.

At Advantage Systems, we take a real world common sense approach to your relational database; we will select the appropriate design methodology based on your business needs, add indexes and primary keys to improve performance, de-normalize the tables that store historical data and eliminate storing duplicate data where it makes sense. Advantage Systems will also implement the necessary data validation to ensure invalid information does not enter your database and security to keep your information protected.