We are looking at updating (rewriting) our system which stores information about when people can reserve rooms etc. during the day. Right now we store the start and time and the date the room is available in one table, and in another we store the individual appointment times.
On the surface it seemed like a logical idea to store the information this way, but as time progressed and the system came under heavy load, we began to realize that this data structure appears to be inefficient. (It becomes an intensive operation to search all rooms for available times and calculate when the rooms are available. If the room is available for a given time, is the time that it is available long enough to accommodate the requested time).
We have gone around in circles about how to make the system more efficient, and we feel there has to be a better way to approach this. Does anyone have suggestions about how to go about this, or have any places where to look about how to build something like this?
I found this book to be inspiring and a must-read for any kind of database involving time management/constraints:
Developing Time-Oriented Database Applications in SQL
(Added by editor: the book is available online, via the Richard Snodgrass‘s home page. It is a good book.)