The ever-growing database is cancerous and not sustainable. Its the duty of the business to define the data retention policies. Application dev to implement the policy and DBA to enforce it.

To manage database growth, practical actions include optimizing indexes, partitioning tables, and adjusting cache settings. Use sharding and load balancing to distribute demand, and set up alerts to monitor CPU, memory, and I/O usage, adjusting resources in real-time.

Scaling up should always be a last resort, since it's not really addressing the big elephant in the room. Here are the things that we can do to address this challenge: 1. Check what's causing the growth. Is there any unnecessary table logging activated that causes huge amount of data being recorded in DB? 2. Enabling data compression 3. Implement archiving and data volume management

Managing a rapidly growing database requires strategies that balance storage efficiency and data accessibility. Regularly assessing data ingestion patterns against initial projections helps prevent unexpected growth due to issues like table bloat and fragmentation. Effective practices include archiving older data to cold storage based on retention policies, indexing, partitioning and summarizing historical data instead of storing every detail. Horizontal and vertical scaling, data compression, and continuous monitoring of usage patterns also help extend capacity. By optimizing storage and enforcing retention policies, businesses can avoid infrastructure strain and support sustainable growth.