TariffShark databases tend to grow larger and larger over time. If you think about it, this makes perfect sense. Each time an eTariff filing is made, Tariff Record Versions are added as are the filing’s FERC Attachments. Data is constantly being added to a TariffShark database and seldom deleted.
As the size of a database grows, so does the cost of maintaining it. The files that comprise the database require more space on disk and its backups run longer and also require more storage. Therefore, it may be wise to take any steps available to reduce database size. In a TariffShark database, there are opportunities for size reduction, which by and large come from tables in the database that store transient or audit data.
- Audit – All interactions between a TariffShark client and the application server are written to an audit table. The audit table can grow quite large over time. Records in the audit table are seldom if ever needed, but can be helpful when tracking down software issues. In any event, data in the audit table older than a few weeks provides no value.
- TRV Processing Queue – The Tariff Record Version processing queue is used to track and manage the processing of all TRV documents. This is truly transient data in that after a TRV document is processed successfully, the queue data is no longer needed.
- Binary Data – TariffShark stores binary data (Word documents and PDFs, for example) separately from other TariffShark data and seldom deletes table rows that are no longer needed. Over time, unneeded documents can take up quite a bit of space in the database.
Each of these database areas can be cleaned up and, as a result, database size reduced by running a separate administrative stored procedure that ships with TariffShark Hammerhead. If you would like to learn more about these stored procedures so that you can keep your TariffShark database running efficiently, contact TariffShark Support.
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