Whitepaper : The Trade-off Between Database Security and Database Performance

The security of any database can be improved. However, that likely degrades the performance of the database. The cost increases to improve database security while maintaining database performance. That is, the trade-off consists of three axes: Performance, security, and cost. The existence of the three trade-off axes means that security and performance can co-exist. However, it comes at the expense of increased costs (such as effort, planning, and system resources). Fundamentally, it is necessary to choose between a database that is secure and performing, a database that is secure and not costly, or a database that is performing and not costly. It is not feasible to choose a database that is secure, performing, and not costly.

This whitepaper describes how maintaining database performance involves ensuring that end-users can get to everything that they need. In contrast, improving database security focuses on controlling the access of end-users to the available resources. Database security and performance are two of the critical quality attributes used in evaluating the service being delivered by databases to the end-users. While these attributes are highly desirable for databases, end-users often see them as almost inversely related. As database security becomes more important over time, this brings its effects on database performance to the forefront. Security methods cannot overly impact end-users. At the same time, it is not possible to sacrifice security compliance due to the risk of data breaches and the requirements to meet regulatory guidelines.