Database Consistency
Database consistency is a fundamental property in database systems that ensures data remains valid and adheres to defined rules, constraints, and integrity conditions after transactions. It is a core principle of the ACID (Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, Durability) model, guaranteeing that only valid data is written to the database, preventing corruption. Consistency ensures that all data relationships and business rules are maintained, such as foreign key constraints, unique keys, and data type validations.
Developers should understand and implement database consistency to build reliable applications where data integrity is critical, such as in financial systems, e-commerce platforms, and healthcare databases. It prevents data anomalies, ensures accurate reporting, and supports transactional reliability, especially in distributed systems where consistency models like strong consistency or eventual consistency must be chosen based on use cases like real-time analytics or high-availability web services.