One big database or several small ones

[dragonwell]

I was wondering what the advantages/disadvantages were (in an enterprise application) in separating unrelated information into smaller databases or keeping one large database.

 

[JayKusch]

Try to minimize the number of DBs that you need to deal with. One major advantage in a single DB is that of Referential Integrity(RI). You can only achieve RI within the same DB objects.

Thanks

J. Kusch

 

[ClaireHCM]

For me, unrelated information could be seperated into several small databases, because the manipulation (insert, update and delete) of the data and the functionality (query and analysis) of the data are quite different, putting unrelated information into one big database doesnt really make sense.