---
title: "Best practices"
slug: "dev-database-best-practices-index"
updated: 2026-10-30T18:18:46Z
published: 2026-10-30T18:18:46Z
canonical: "docs.vastdata.com/dev-database-best-practices-index"
---

> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.vastdata.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Best practices

This section will recommend designs and starting values for VAST DataBase tables and queries: what to choose for a given workload, and how to size for it. Recommendations are a starting point, based on benchmarks and deployments. Always measure with your own data before you rely on them.

## What this section will contain

- **Choosing a table layout by workload:** when to use regular, sorted, partitioned or semi-sorted tables for common access patterns, and what each costs.
- **Sizing and parallelism:** how many CNodes and endpoints to use, and how to set splits and sub-splits for a given scan rate.
- **Bulk ingest at scale:** batch sizes, parallel writers and file layouts for large loads.
- **Trino and Spark tuning:** connector and session settings that matter for VAST DataBase.
- **[Trino with VAST DataBase](/develop/docs/dev-database-best-practices-trino)** (draft): network, endpoints, splits, Trino sizing and table design for Trino workloads.
- **Several engines on one copy of the data:** patterns for mixing Python ingest, Trino dashboards and Spark jobs on the same tables.

Each page will say which VAST Cluster version and test setup its recommendations come from.

## Where to find how it works

The rest of the VAST DataBase docs explain how each feature works, what each setting does and how to measure the result: [data modeling](/develop/docs/dev-database-guides-data-modeling), [table structures](/develop/docs/dev-database-concepts-architecture-table-structures), [querying](/develop/docs/dev-database-guides-querying), [ingest](/develop/docs/dev-database-guides-ingest), [performance](/develop/docs/dev-database-operations-performance). Best-practices pages link to those pages rather than repeat them.

## Status

This section is being written. Until its pages are published, start with the pages above, and ask your VAST account team for guidance on your workload.