Java Enterprise Best Practices

Do Not Store Binary Data in Database

Databases are horrible places for binary data. The database engine ends up being a nasty middleman for pulling large chunks of data. Furthermore, it is not particularly optimized for the unique needs of binary data. Unfortunately, moving the data to the filesystem and maintaining pointers to the filesystem in the database puts data integrity at risk. What if someone deletes the file, but the record pointing to the file remains in the database?

For most applications, the data integrity issue is not a huge problem. Digital asset collections, however, can become unmanageable when you store the binary data on the filesystem. These specialized applications should instead use a digital asset management system to manage the binary data.