SQL

The Protein Data Bank (PDB) bioinformatics database is the world's largest repository of experimentally-determined structures of proteins, nucleic acids, and complex assemblies. All data is gathered using experimental methods such as X-ray, spectroscopy, crystallography, NMR, etc. This article explains how to extract, filter, and clean data from the PDB to make it suitable for further analysis.

For a large codebase, managing database schema can become tedious, especially if you maintain multiple testing environments or customers that update the product at different paces. Sometimes, documenting the latest schema or database changes isn't enough. In this article, Toptal Database Engineer Ivan Pavlov introduces us to concepts that help manage database states.

Flaws in your database design are like cracks in your application’s foundations. If left unchecked, trying to fix them down the line will be costly to say the least. In this article, Toptal Freelance Software Engineer Fernando Martinez discusses some of the most common database design bad practices and how to avoid them.

Sharing related information among isolated systems has become increasingly important. There are many methods to choose from to perform that task for SQL Server, but it’s important to know which is better for each use case.

Security has always been a primary concern for database experts, and with the advent of new, decentralized services, it’s become even more crucial. Microsoft addressed the need for an added level of security in SQL with the introduction of Always Encrypted functionality in SQL Server 2016. In this blog post, Toptal Freelance Software Engineer Josip Saban explains how Microsoft’s Always Encrypted concept works, how it’s implemented, and why developers can’t afford to ignore it.

Database tuning can be an incredibly difficult task, particularly when working with large-scale data where even the most minor change can have a dramatic (positive or negative) impact on performance. In mid-sized and large companies, most database tuning will be handled by a Database Administrator (DBA). But there are plenty of developers who have to perform DBA-like tasks; meanwhile, DBAs often struggle to work well with developers. In this article, learn database tuning tips and how developers and DBAs can work together effectively.

Although database programming does not evolve at nearly the same pace as traditional application programming, recent advancements in several fields are bringing new techniques and technologies within the reach of small and independent developers. In this guide, Toptal Freelance Software Engineer Jeffrey Shumaker explains how developers can quickly and easily tap these methods to identify database issues they may not even be aware of, and how they can build excellent data mining tools without spending a lot on expensive software licenses.

To retain its users, any application or website must run fast. For mission critical environments, a couple of milliseconds delay in getting information might create big problems. As database sizes grow day by day, we need to fetch data as fast as possible, and write the data back into the database as fast as possible. To make sure all operations are executing smoothly, we have to tune Microsoft SQL Server for performance.

Data conversion, translation, and mapping is by no means rocket science, but it is by all means tedious. This article introduces MetaDapper, a .NET library that strives to simplify, streamline, and automate the data conversion process to the greatest extent possible.