Database Design & Optimisation
Expert database architecture, performance tuning, and data management that keeps your business running smoothly.
Your database is the foundation everything else is built on. At Porter Phillips, we design, build, and optimise databases that handle your data reliably, perform efficiently under load, and scale as your business grows. Based in Selby, North Yorkshire, we bring deep SQL Server and Azure SQL expertise to help businesses across the UK get the most from their data. Whether you need a new database designed from scratch, an existing database optimised for better performance, or a migration to the cloud, we have the expertise to deliver.
Database Architecture and Design
We design database schemas that accurately model your business domain, enforce data integrity through proper constraints and relationships, and support the query patterns your applications need. Our designs follow normalisation principles whilst being pragmatic about denormalisation where performance demands it. We consider read/write ratios, data volume growth projections, reporting requirements, and integration needs when designing your schema. The result is a database that is both rigorous in its data integrity and practical in its performance characteristics.
Performance Optimisation
Slow queries frustrate users and waste server resources. We analyse query execution plans, identify missing or inefficient indexes, optimise stored procedures, and restructure queries for better performance. Our optimisation work typically delivers dramatic improvements — queries that took minutes running in seconds. We use Azure SQL Analytics, Query Store, and Extended Events to identify performance bottlenecks and measure the impact of optimisations. For applications with complex reporting requirements, we implement read replicas and materialized views to separate transactional and analytical workloads.
Cloud Database Migration
We migrate on-premises SQL Server databases to Azure SQL Database and Azure SQL Managed Instance with minimal downtime. Our migration process includes thorough assessment of compatibility issues, performance testing, data validation, and cutover planning. We handle the complexities of migrating large databases including schema conversion, data synchronisation during the migration window, and application connection string management. Post-migration, we optimise your Azure SQL configuration for cost and performance, taking advantage of cloud-native features like automatic tuning and elastic scaling.
Data Backup and Disaster Recovery
We implement comprehensive backup strategies that protect your data against hardware failure, human error, and catastrophic events. For Azure SQL databases, we configure geo-redundant backups, point-in-time restore capabilities, and failover groups for high-availability scenarios. For on-premises SQL Server, we design backup schedules with full, differential, and transaction log backups, test restore procedures regularly, and ensure recovery point objectives (RPO) and recovery time objectives (RTO) meet your business requirements.
Data Analytics and Warehousing
When your business needs to analyse large volumes of data across multiple sources, we design and implement data warehouse solutions using Azure Synapse Analytics. We build ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) pipelines using Azure Data Factory that consolidate data from operational databases, APIs, flat files, and other sources into a unified analytical data store. Combined with Power BI dashboards, these solutions give your business powerful analytical capabilities without impacting the performance of your operational systems.
Key Benefits
Properly designed schemas with data integrity guarantees
Dramatic performance improvements through expert optimisation
Seamless cloud migration with minimal downtime
Comprehensive backup and disaster recovery strategies
Data warehousing and analytics for business intelligence
Scalable architecture that grows with your business
Technologies We Use
Frequently Asked Questions
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