10 tips for choosing between a surrogate and natural primary key Your email has been sent The superiority of surrogate versus natural keys is a hotly debated topic among database developers. Susan ...

If you’ve worked with relational database systems for any length of time, you’ve probably participated in a discussion (argument?) about the topic of this month’s column, surrogate keys. A great ...

Surrogate means a stand-in, a substitute. Surrogate keys take the place of a natural key as the primary key within a database table. Ideally, surrogate keys stand in the shadows and are used in ...

Which makes for a better primary key: natural data points or meaningless values? Database developers have strong opinions on this facet of primary key design. This article settles the debate once and ...