How to control the number of tables in the database?

Question

Database administration

I am currently administering databases and data stores in a web project.
New functionality is constantly being written and developers for this business produce tables in the processing database. For my part, this is seen as the uncontrolled creation of tables, of which there are now more than 200. And at such a pace in a couple of years there will be 400 of them. And then no one will figure out if there is a necessary existing one, and new ones will be produced. As a result, the Base will turn into something that no one can explain to tell. There is no separate system analyst or data architect who would look at the feature and requirements, and create a table for this feature and immediately for possible other future ones. Those. now tables are created for each individual need and are not used for the next new functionality.
How to properly approach the creation of new tables, so as not to produce them over trifles? How to follow and describe them, so that before creating a new one, you can read and understand that there is already a similar one and you don’t need to do a new one?

Answer 1

To control it, there must be a person responsible for it. A responsible person must have the rights and knowledge to do this. Now you are clearly not able to adequately "control" the tables in the database, since you yourself do not know which ones are needed for what, and you cannot say whether a particular table is needed or not. And you can’t say what exactly will be bad, how, from what and when. "I saw a terrible horror elsewhere" will not convince anyone, believe me. Accordingly, no one will listen to you, and if they are suddenly obliged in some way, you will simply be for those around you a narrow-minded small-town despot who prevents people from working.
When you become responsible for the architecture of the database (not for the operation of the SQL service), when you talk to people at the level of "Vasek, we already have this entity in the database, it was created by Ivanych two days ago, let's better establish communication between you so that you were aware, and we will delete this unnecessary table" then you will be able to control what and how is created there. Because you will have arguments, analysis, knowledge, understanding of business entities, the development process, what kind of problems threaten, when, and how exactly they can be avoided.
Here's what you do.

Answer 2

In this case, general purpose tables are introduced. Service tables are introduced that store a description of the contents of general-purpose tables. As a result, you can write almost anything without changing the structure of the database.