Why might a developer choose to implement indexing in a database?

Implementing indexing in a database allows for quicker access to data without having to scan the entire table. Indexes are similar to the index of a book; they provide a pointer to the location of the data, thus reducing the time it takes to find specific records. When a database query is executed, the database management system can use the index to locate the desired data more efficiently, which improves the performance of read operations—especially in large databases. This is particularly beneficial for queries that involve searching, filtering, or sorting data based on specific columns.

In contrast to backing up a database or ensuring data integrity, indexing's primary focus is enhancing data retrieval performance. Creating backups is a crucial part of data management, and ensuring data integrity is tied to transaction management and not specifically related to the concept of indexing. Additionally, while maintaining data consistency across multiple tables is important for relational databases, such functionality typically requires mechanisms such as foreign keys and triggers rather than indexing itself.