The organization is key to the operation of a company, especially when it comes to storing and recording data. For a business to operate smoothly and without internal error, you must make sure that your information and records are stored in a structured and organized database. This is often accomplished with a data warehouse – but what do we do when one isn’t available?

You’ll need to turn your attention to a live production database. When querying a production database, however, you must ensure that your query is optimized. Errors and mistyping can lead to slow performance or a loss of service for some. Ensuring that your query is optimized must be done before the process is started. When coding in SQL, you’ll need to be extra clear about your intents.

Define the requirements

Before you start the process of developing your SQL query optimization, you’ll want to make sure everyone who has a stake in the matter is involved. Having the voice of everyone who this affects is necessary for developing the perfect query.

Be sure your query has a desired outcome. A goal at the end of the road which this query is meant to reach should be decided prior to beginning the SQL query process. If the query is left without a definitely final destination, you are subjecting it to unnecessary strain and risk.

Asking for a report on the intended audience of the query at the end will help to keep the information retrieved relevant and useful. If your information snare is too broad, you could be left with useless data on topics that were not at issue.

Ask good questions – stick to the who, what, when, where, and why scale when organizing your thoughts. Keep your thoughts precise and strict – the less organized your language is when developing the query, the more open it is to providing errors or difficulty.

Be careful with your terminology

One of the biggest issues developers face in SQL query development is their use of terminology. The better optimized your terms are, the better the information will be in return. Keep your terms strict and you will better avoid errors.

SELECT

Avoid using the SELECT * option as your query might have too many fields for the system to process. If you implement a SELECT feature rather than a SELECT * feature, you better restrict the query to what it needs to gather.

WHERE

Remember the order of operations for an SQL query – WHERE comes before HAVING commands. If you want to keep your query organized, stick to the order of operations when developing the query.

INNER JOIN

There is no difference between the performance of a WHERE and an INNER JOIN command, but sometimes the system lumps a WHERE command into another feature. To avoid this confusion, simply use INNER JOIN rather than WHERE whenever you can.

Find the right tools online

There are plenty of tools online that will help to optimize your SQL query before starting the process. Always remember to be organized and clear when developing the query in order to prevent errors from occurring.