Network surgery

Why use a database to publish information on the web?

for northern Europe, talks through the benefits of using a database to create an innovative website for your business. AThe only reason for a business to publish information on the web is to gain a commercial advantage. This may include: streamlining ordering processes, reducing costs, expanding into new markets, increasing public awareness, increasing sales, reducing margins, speeding up stock turnover or sharing knowledge with customers and workforce.

For years managers have tried to untap the vast pools of information that each person controls. Imagine giving your employees the combined knowledge of everyone in the company - productivity and profits would go through the roof. Until now, tools to enable the sharing of these resources have not been available. The delivery and retrieval methods were not cost-effective and there were no web-enabled databases.

According to the latest surveys, the number of people using the web worldwide is in the region of 145 million. It is easy to recognise the potential to open new markets. In order to make optimal use of this medium, a website must empower the customer to interact with the site. Using a database as the information engine is the best way of achieving this.

Q What are the advantages over traditional methods?

A Traditionally, business information such as product catalogues, pricing and stock availability has been distributed by post or fax, or given out in response to a telephone enquiry. The web enables companies to make this information available more efficiently.

The benefits of this include:

- Allowing the user to search and sort the information;

- Information can be collected from site visitors;

- Database driven websites can run processes such as information requests or ordering products, and deliver tailored content for each user.

Q Is the website automatically updated by the database?

A The database is the information engine for the web. The information that is input through the web is automatically stored on the host database and then republished to the web. This is the advantage of tightly integrating your client and server. Conversely, any information updated in the database can automatically be updated on the web.

Q What resources are required to publish a database?

A There are three main components needed to publish a database:

- An Internet Service Provider: An ISP is a more economical way to connect small and medium-sized companies to the internet than owning a full-time Kilostream line. It also provides other services, including registering your site's name.

- A website: This can be created in-house using tools such as Home Page or Net Object. Alternatively, the website design could be outsourced to specialist companies.

- A database: Examples of databases that can drive websites are Microsoft Access and FileMaker Pro. Microsoft Access can be used on Windows platforms and FileMaker Pro is a cross-platform technology - Windows all formats, and Mac OS - which is also integrated with Home Page. Both of these products use built-in style forms and templates to design the look and feel of a website, while in the background, the database publishes and updates the queried information.

The advantage of building your web-enabled database with one of the more popular database suppliers, is that there are many independent developers who create custom add-on applications, which can be downloaded from the internet. These include shopping cart and credit card authentication solutions for e-commerce sites.

Q What is the cost of publishing a database on the web?

A Two costs need to be considered: the internet hosting of the web pages and database/s, and the development, implementation and maintenance costs.

ISPs compete globally - as the service can be bought from any country - and pricing is competitive. They offer various services including hosting databases, 'machine hosting' (where a user's computer is connected to the internet) and various maintenance and backup packages.

The more variable cost is the initial design and implementation of the website. The user needs to decide whether to use a specialist consultant or programmer, or to use existing in-house expertise to link the database to the web. The problem with specialists is that demand - and therefore prices - are relatively high.

Q How secure is the information I publish on the web?

A The security of a web is dependent on the necessary implementation of a firewall. A firewall is a combination of hardware and software buffers that are placed between internal networks and the internet. When using Microsoft Access and Internet Information Server, users need to implement Windows NT Challenge/ Response or customised security schemes to obtain directory-level protection. This will take a well trained IIS/NT administrator only a few minutes but can be more challenging for less experienced users.

Using FileMaker Pro, security is implemented at the database level, which enables the user to apply a unique security schema to each database. Administrators can assign passwords to the entire database or to specific forms and columns.