There’s not much to database keys, right? When you build a new table, you add a column to act as the primary key, then set it to auto-generate. Done. That’s all there is to know…right?
The goal of this article is to demonstrate that there’s much more to the process than this. There are options to selecting, defining, and using keys. For optimal design and performance, consider your choices carefully.
What are the different types of database keys?
Keys come in two basic flavors: natural and surrogate. Natural keys, as their name suggests, are values that occur naturally in the data.