Chapter 6. Indexes and Constraints

In the previous chapter, we talked about transactions and locking, which helped you understand their effect on the database. In this chapter, we will discuss indexes and constraints, types of indexes and constraints, their use in the real world, and the best practices on when we need to and how to create them. Your application may have different kinds of data, and you will want to maintain data integrity across the database and, at the same time, you need a performance gain as well. This chapter helps you understand how you can choose indexes and constraints for your requirement and improve performance. It also covers real-time examples that will help you understand better. Of course, not all types of indexes or constraints are the best fit for your requirement; however, you can choose the required ones based on how they work.