Ulises,

You have to consider how fast the data is changing. You may want to make changing the number of items available part of the product sale transaction. This way, the next time that product is requested, the inventory will be accurate and the buyer will know whether it is available or back-ordered.

Also, with a slower inventory, you might want to save the updates for a batch process in the off-hours when the server isn't busy doing the sales transactions.

A lot depends on your particular operation. Are you like Amazon, selling jillions of pieces per day, or do you have a large inventory that changes slowly.


>To all of you experienced database designers.
>I am a self thought Database programmer, and since I did not followed any formal training some things are a little confusing still...
>What is the best way to update an inventory table? My question is if the correct approach is to do it each time a product is selected and processed, or to wait until the whole sale transaction (like a full invoice) is finished and do a 'bulk' update.
>I'd like to hear some expert comments.
>Thank you in advance.
>Ulises