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Posted by nyathancha on 06/25/07 07:08
Hi,
I have a question regarding best practices in database design. In a
relational database, is it wise/necessary to sometimes create tables
that are not related to other tables through a foreign Key
relationship or does this always indicate some sort of underlying
design flaw. Something that requires a re evaluation of the problem
domain?
The reason I ask is because in our application, the user can perform x
number of high level operations (creating/updating projects, creating/
answering surveys etc. etc.). Different users can perform different
operations and each operation can manipulate one or more table. This
part of the system is done and working. Now there is a requirement to
have some sort of audit logging inside the database (separate from the
text based log file that the application generates anyway). This
"audit logging" table will contain high level events that occur inside
the application (which may or may not relate to a particular
operation). This table is in some sense related to every other table
in the database, as well as data that is not in the database itself
(exceptions, external events etc.). For example : it might have
entries that specify that at time x user created project y, at time A
user filled out survey B, at time C LDAP server was down, At time D an
unauthorized login attempt occurred etc.
As I said, these seems to suggest a stand alone, floating table with a
few fields that store entries regarding whats going on the system
without any direct relationship to other tables in the database. But I
just feel uneasy about creating such an isolated table. Another option
is to store the "logging" information in another schema/database, but
that doubles the maintainance work load. Not really looking forward to
maintaining/designing two different schemas.
I had a look at the microsoft adventureworks database schema diagram
and they seem to have 3 standalong tables - AWBuildVersion, ErrorLog
and DatabaseLog (unless i am reading it wrong!)
Any advice, Information or resources are much appreciated.
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