Maintaining data integrity is a critical aspect of database management, ensuring that the data stored in a system is accurate, consistent, and reliable. This process involves implementing various constraints, rules, and checks to prevent errors, corruption, or loss of data. Data integrity encompasses both the structure of data and the accuracy of the values stored. Enforcing rules like primary key constraints, foreign key relationships, and not null constraints ensures that data adheres to defined rules, preventing inconsistencies. Additionally, implementing transaction management protocols, such as ACID properties, ensures that data modifications are atomic, consistent, isolated, and durable.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_integrity
One of the key practices in maintaining data integrity is proper data validation both at the point of entry and during processing. Data validation ensures that the information entering the system is correct, meets the required format, and does not conflict with existing records. For example, when a new record is added to a table, foreign key constraints are used to check that the record being added corresponds to an existing record in another table. Similarly, input validation can prevent invalid data, such as incorrect dates or numbers, from being entered into the database. This helps reduce errors and ensures that all stored data is consistent.
https://www.dataversity.net/data-validation-and-data-integrity/
Database management systems (DBMS) play a pivotal role in maintaining data integrity. DBMSs provide features like automated backup, access control, and rollback capabilities to protect the integrity of data. Regular backups ensure that even in the case of hardware failure or data corruption, a system can recover to a consistent state. Access control mechanisms limit who can modify data, ensuring that only authorized users are allowed to make changes. Additionally, data normalization helps maintain integrity by reducing redundancy and ensuring that data is logically structured in a way that prevents inconsistencies.