Why is data normalization needed in SQL?

Data normalization in SQL is the process of organizing data in a database to minimize redundancy and dependency.

The main goals of normalization:

• Reduce data duplication, which saves space and simplifies updates.
• Avoid anomalies during insert, update, and delete operations.
• Ensure data integrity and logical structure.

For example, instead of storing information about customers and their orders in one table with repeating customer data, normalization divides the data into two tables: Customers and Orders, linked by a key.

This makes database maintenance and scaling easier.