Database

It's no secret that databases are an integral part of business operations. Your data is crucial, but it's only fulfilling a fraction of its usefulness if it's not available online. A web site database application can make your data more useful by allowing it to be presented online in unique ways, and allowing it to be easily collected and managed through the web site. We've developed database applications utilizing a wide array of databases and operating systems. For a discussion on some of the database technologies we regularly implement, read below. For case studies on how we've integrated client databases with their web sites, choose from the following:

Public Database Applications

Click here to find case studies of web-based applications we've built which make client data available online to the public.

Back Office Database Applications

Here you'll find a few case studies of clients we've created back office database tools to simplify common business administration tasks.

Content Managment Services

Click Here to see a case study of how Content Managment Services work to easily manage the front end content.

Relational Databases vs. Flat File Databases

Originally, databases were flat. This means that the information was stored in one long text file, called a tab delimited file. Each entry in the tab delimited file is separated by a special character, such as a vertical bar (|). Each entry contains multiple pieces of information (fields) about a particular object or person grouped together as a record. The text file makes it difficult to search for specific information or to create reports that include only certain fields from each record. Here's an example of the file created by a flat database: Lname, FName, Age, Salary|Smith, John, 35, $280|Doe, Jane, 28, $325|Brown, Scott, 41, $265|Howard, Shemp, 48, $359|Taylor, Tom, 22, $250 You can see that you have to search sequentially through the entire file to gather related information, such as age or salary. A relational database allows you to easily find specific information. It also allows you to sort based on any field and generate reports that contain only certain fields from each record. Relational databases use tables to store information. The standard fields and records are represented as columns (fields) and rows (records) in a table. Look at this example: LName    FName City Age Salary Smith    John 3 35 $280 Doe    Jane 1 28 $325 Brown    Scott 3 41 $265 Howard    Shemp 4 48 $359 Taylor    Tom 2 22 $250 In the relational database example, you can quickly compare salaries and ages because of the arrangement of data in columns. The relational database model takes advantage of this uniformity to build completely new tables out of required information from existing tables. In other words, it uses the relationship of similar data to increase the speed and versatility of the database. The "relational" part of the name comes into play because of the other tables. A typical relational database has anywhere from 10 to more than 1,000 tables. Each table contains a column or columns that other tables can key on to gather information from that table. Look at the table below that matches the number in the City column of the above table with the name of a city. CityID    CityName 1 Boston 2 London 3 New York 4 Los Angeles By storing this information in another table, the database can create a single small table with the locations that can then be used for a variety of purposes by other tables in the database. A typical large database, will contain a dozen or even hundreds of tables like this all used together to quickly find the exact information needed at any given time.

Unix/Linux Open Source Database Technology

There are a wide variety of benefits associated with using Open Source Linux technologies. Many small businesses appreciate the freedom from costly recurring license fees, and large businesses can appreciate that Linux machines traditionally make the most secure, hack-proof web servers. In addition, many web technologies were developed directly for use on the Linux platform, making it the web server operating system of choice. In a wide variety of situations, we employ MySQL when developing database-driven web applications. MySQL is the world's most popular open source relational database. With more than five million active installations, MySQL is the core of many high-volume, business-critical applications. Customers like Yahoo!, Google, Cisco, HP and NASA use MySQL's high performance, reliable database to power large Web sites and business-critical enterprise applications. The flexibility of MySQL allows us to create custom database solutions to nearly any business problem - whether it be compiling and displaying complex customized reports or an administration area custom-tailored to your business model and practices. And one other attractive aspect of MySQL is that it is available cross-platform for Windows, Mac, or all flavors of Linux. This means that if your server requirements or infrastructure change, you can easily move your critical data to any other server, irrespective of operating system. There's no need for costly database conversion to port the data to a new system.

Windows Database Technology

Microsoft Access is a relational database management system for creating database applications that run under the Windows operating system. Packaged as a component of most editions of Microsoft Office, Access has the same look and feel as other Office products like Word and Excel. Its easy accessibility for the average user make it a popular database for small business data. SQL Server is Microsoft's enterprise level database solution. SQL Server systems are generally for projects that require a more robust database solution than MS Access. This commonly would involve databases with a projected size greater than 20M and websites with very high hit rates. Due to added expense and complexity it is not recommended for small to mid-size projects which can be better served by Access or MySQL. For clients who already have an existing Microsoft Access or MS SQL database, we can utilize that existing database when developing a custom web application. This allows clients to maintain their existing back office infrastructure while making that data available online -- displayed on a web site in any manner desired.