On datastore support for agile software development

Most database-base applications support two main sets of features: customer facing transactional capabilities such as purchasing books at an online bookstore and functionality required by managers and business analysts such as identifying trends in sales data by combing through aggregated sales data. The conventional approach of having just one main database to support both features greatly restrict developers freedom in applying the best approach to quickly implement new features, to enhance existing features, or to mend defects because any attempt in changing database schema means code and test cases modifications in many places and may even require a large amount of effort in testing. Such an inherited resistance in changing introduced by data store does not fit the evolutionary development nature of Agile software development methodology. We argue that we should consider having at least two databases: one support transactional capabilities and the other support reporting and possible data warehouse needs, and will show how such an approach supports the Agile software development methodology.