Question

Benefits of Merging identical Tables

Asked by: lsanipini

i have 5 identical Action tables with exact columns except the with different data type for Action codes and stuff like that..
I am thinking about merging these all 5  tables into one and adding an extra field to say Type.
for example i have PatentAction, TrademarkAction and DisclosureActions tables with the same columns
now i want combine them into one table and differentiate them by the Type field

Are there any advantages to keeping the two tables separate?  If so what are they please? Or should I join the tables, if so are there any downsides to joining the two tables.

and one more thing is the security(row and column), we have users who logs in directly to data base, where we don't want them to touch the other type if data.(e.i should migrate Table to Row level)

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Asked On
2005-09-29 at 07:40:38ID21578428
Tags

tables

,

merge

,

identical

Topic

MS SQL Server

Participating Experts
2
Points
500
Comments
4

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Answers

 

by: angelIIIPosted on 2005-09-29 at 07:44:20ID: 14984214

>i have 5 identical Action tables with exact columns except the with different data type for Action codes and stuff like that..
>I am thinking about merging these all 5  tables into one and adding an extra field to say Type.
Yes, this is a good idea in general.
However, if the tables are really large, then keeping them apart can help performance because of I/O issues.
In SqL Server 2005 the "problem" is solved as they come with partitionned table (like oracle has already since years), where you can put each partition into it's own filegroup.


 

by: arbertPosted on 2005-09-29 at 18:19:20ID: 14989177

"In SqL Server 2005 the "problem" is solved as they come with partitionned table (like oracle has already since years), where you can put each partition into it's own filegroup."

You can do that now with check constraints and partitioned views--2005 just makes it easier and implements it a tad different.

Other than that, I would agree with angelIII UNLESS by merging the table together the data becomes less unique and none of your indexes perform as they did before.

Brett

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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