Suppose your mobile app designers create catchy graphics, dynamic UI, friendly content, layout, and now it is time to optimize the app for UX and performance during the development process. Your testing or quality assurance team is not giving a node of approval at all. Reasons? App back-end database glitches. Inconsistent data flow, denial of services, and slow or faulty database retrievals.
For businesses or enterprises, data is a precious asset. So, the security of database and data interactions or transits is an ultimate demand in any mobile app. Synchronization of different kinds of data within one or more databases often witness data conflicts.
These very things pinpoint one obvious fact: we are missing something at database aspects of our mobile applications. It also signifies how the proper database selection makes a difference in the success of your mobile application. The current post gives handy hints to choose the suitable database for your next mobile app development project.
Let’s examine all crucial aspects regarding databases in app development.
Step 1 – Know Your Data
Today, most apps are demanding data from their users. B2C applications require user registration with some personal or professional data to offer secure login experiences. B2B apps accumulate business data. The finance category of apps has financial data to provide safe and quick login. Ecommerce apps are striving for personal, professional, and transnational data.
Apart from users, the app also collects data from social media, app interactions, and buying history to offer highly personalized user experiences. These all require a massive data storage capacity, big data exchanging capabilities, and most importantly, data analytics power to present data in various formats.
What Is a Database?
In short, you need a database management system (DBMS) to meet our mobile app database needs. DBMS is a software solution for anything pertaining to data in your mobile app functionality. Selecting the right one is crucial for app performance and eventually for app success.
Step 2 – Know Your Database Needs
Know Data Attributes
Suppose you know your data attributes well in advance before choosing a database solution. In that case, you can compare different DBMS available in the market and match the right one or more as per your requirements today and tomorrow. So, let me give some hints regarding various data attributes for your mobile app.
Data Structure
It determines how you store and retrieve data. Your data may have various formats, and you have to select your database accordingly, so you get complete support and avoid data conflicts during exchanging and syncing.
Data Size
It depends on your application and how much data need to store, analyze, and exchange. You need to consider the quantity of data, file systems, servers, and vendor-specific optimization during database selection.
Speed of Data Exchanging & Scaling of Database
The speed of data exchanges mostly depends on the speed of incoming reads and writes to the application. Based on the service needs, you have to select a database for your read-heavy or write-heavy apps. The scaling of database architecture is relying on future I/O needs.
Step 3 – Get Help from Data Modeling
It is true that we always cannot map out the needs for the selection of the right database. Therefore, you have to pass through the data modeling process to fix it. The process has the following needs:
- For a conceptual model
- Identify the entities
- Segregate associated attributes
- Recognize entity relationships, which you might need
Step 4 – Match Needs To be Based On Data Modeling with Database Solutions
By following a rigorous data modeling process, you can clarify the data structure you need for your mobile application. Now, you must know existing and successful database solutions in the market. Let me introduce a few of them here.
Types of Databases
Databases are whether in tabular format or non-tabular or documental format. To work with any database, an especial language is a requirement. It is Sequential Query Language (SQL) for table-based databases, while for non-tabular databases, it is No SQL types of languages are needed.
We will not take database operating language as a base for database classification; rather, we choose data types in due course.
Operational Database (ODB)
It is for real-time operations and data management. It may be SQL or No SQL type. It is an ideal solution for the app dealing with customer, inventory, and personal database needs.
Relational Database (RDB)
It is a set of data tables with described relationships. Primary keys and foreign keys are linking tables and establishing relationships. Here, SQL is used as its API to interact with the data stored in tables. Table format helps easy storage and retrieval of data. The majority of mobile apps use SQL types of RDB for best performance.
Data Warehouse
Warehouse means long-term storage. Many businesses and their apps require long-term storage and use of data. Mainly for management of business queries and various data analyses to make decisions or prepare reports.
Distributed Database (DDB)
In multinational or large-scale businesses, data needs are distributed among several branches or different geographic areas. DDB is a solution with one database at each node/branch. It requires real-time syncing and updating.
End-user Database (EUDB)
Some enterprises keep databases separate for a different level of users. The end-user database helps the business to meet database requirements for its end-users. These databases may be for external customers or internal end-users of mobile applications.
Ideal Criteria for the Selection of Database
After a glimpse of different databases, it is time to set ideal criteria for your database selection process. In other words, what you should look into the databases.
Client Platform Support
We know most mobile app database solutions offer support to the major mobile platforms like iOS, Android, and Windows Phone. If you want to keep all data on client devices, the database must be lightweight and fast to process with somewhat weak processing power.
Checking the platform support for DBMS coding is essential. However, today, our mobile apps go beyond mobile devices and opt to sync with IoT and Wearable devices.
Technical Fundamentals as Selection Criteria
Technically, the databases models classified their technical structure or architecture such as:
- Relational database
- Non-relational or document database
- Columnar database
- Key/value database
- Graph database
Now, you have to determine which architecture is excellent for your mobile app data needs. Another aspect that needs consideration is the ratio of reads to writes and throughput to meet those requirements.
Requirements of Multiple Databases
Most of the enterprise-scale mobile applications deal with multitudes of database requirements to meet diverse needs. For example, an app has search requirements with complex needs. It also requires meeting reporting capabilities. It has a data pipeline to accept and analyze incoming data. It also often happens in cross-platform mobile app development where support for more than one OS demands different kinds of databases in a single app system.
In such a scenario, an application demands more than one type of database to meet all requirements. It may require mingling of SQL and No SQL databases or other types of databases. You have to keep ready for flexibility in database coding and avoid data syncing issues right before data conflicts occur. Another helpful piece of advice is to use a master database to keep data as canonical databases and support multiple databases with the required security. Cloud-based database solutions also ease the job in this regard.
Check Needs for Data Security
Technically, the implementation of data security is based on the status of data, such as stored data and data in transition. Encryption technologies can help you secure data in transit. For stored data, authentication technologies for data read/write access are an excellent way.
Authentication of the database is a crucial security aspect. You can select user role-based authentication processes considering authentication providers, such as custom, public, and standard.
At the End
Are you looking for the right mobile app database consultant? SysBunny is an ideal destination to get the proper guidance and mobile app development to achieve desired success in the market. Would you like to discuss your project with our impeccable team of mobile application developers? Or hire a dedicated app developer to get free from all stresses?
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