Skip to main content

Faceoff: Surrogate vs. Natural Keys

  • Conference paper

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNISA,volume 6295))

Abstract

The natural and surrogate key architectures are two competing approaches to specifying keys in relational databases. We analyze the performance of these approaches with respect to the update complexity and the query data and expression complexity. Our results provide new insights into the advantages and disadvantages of both approaches.

This research was supported by Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand Research Grant 85575.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Buying options

Chapter
USD   29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD   84.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD   109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Learn about institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. Codd, E.F.: Extending the database relational model to capture more meaning. ACM Trans. Database Syst. 4(4), 397–434 (1979)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Hartmann, S., Link, S.: Efficient reasoning about a robust XML key fragment. ACM Trans. Database Syst. 34(2) (2009)

    Google Scholar 

  3. Link, S., Lukovic, I., Mogin, P.: Performance evaluation of natural key and surrogate key database architectures. Technical Report ECSTR10-06, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand (2010)

    Google Scholar 

  4. Thalheim, B.: Entity-Relationship modeling - foundations of database technology. Springer, Heidelberg (2000)

    MATH  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2010 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

About this paper

Cite this paper

Aleksic, S., Celikovic, M., Link, S., Lukovic, I., Mogin, P. (2010). Faceoff: Surrogate vs. Natural Keys. In: Catania, B., Ivanović, M., Thalheim, B. (eds) Advances in Databases and Information Systems. ADBIS 2010. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 6295. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-15576-5_41

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-15576-5_41

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-15575-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-15576-5

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics