Explain what the process of denormalization of data in a database means and how it is applied.

Denormalization of data is the process of intentionally adding redundancy to a database structure to improve query performance.

In a normalized database, data is divided into multiple related tables, which reduces duplication but can slow down complex queries due to a large number of joins.

With denormalization, some data is duplicated or combined into a single table to reduce the number of joins and speed up read operations. This is useful in systems with frequent read operations and infrequent updates.

Example: instead of storing a customer's address in a separate table, it can be added directly to the orders table to quickly retrieve all information with a single query.

The disadvantage is that maintaining data integrity becomes more complex, as duplicated values need to be synchronized during updates.