19.1. Designing for Scale: Size Considerations

One of the greatest problems you face — whether working with FileMaker or any other database application — is designing solutions that continue to work well as they grow. Some designs succeed when modeled using only a small number of records and survive beta testing (also with moderate-sized record sets), but then founder in deployment, when encumbered with the accumulation of serious quantities of business data.

When a solution develops problems operating under load, many developers are tempted to blame the tool, but frequently such problems are a reflection of the design. What works well in small single-user databases does not necessarily translate well to situations calling for tens or hundreds of thousands of records in multi-user networked systems.