%0 Journal Article
%T Natural versus Surrogate Keys. Performance and Usability
%A Dragos-Paul POP
%J Database Systems Journal
%D 2011
%I Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies Publishing House
%X Choosing the primary key for a table proves to be one of the most important steps in database design. But what happens when we have to pick between a natural or a surrogate key? Is there any performance issue that we must have in mind? Does the literature have a preferred pick? Is usability a concern? WeˇŻll have a look at the advantages and disadvantages of both natural and surrogate keys and the performance and usability issues they address.
%K primary keys
%K natural keys
%K surrogate keys
%K superkey
%K candidate key
%K unique key
%K performance
%K usability.
%U http://www.dbjournal.ro/archive/4/6_Dragos_Pop.pdf