Is all that glitters gold? Maybe! Database connectivity to your World Wide Web server is an idea that shines, but you can run into difficulties if you intend to use the available advanced options, especially if you aren't fluent in database programming. But don't worry. You can create simple online access to information-and more complex data-interactivity-with a little effort and perhaps some help from your database administrator.
When do you need database connectivity? If you have information to distribute to sources such as clients or prospective customers outside your company, connecting your corporate database to the Web can be a golden solution. For example, if you want to let customers search through and order from your catalogue of 10,000 electronics parts, using a database to automate the process is far easier than designing 10,000 custom pages. Besides, in Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) or Common Gateway Interface (CGI) programming, manually creating that many pages is daunting, to say the least. You also want to let your customers insert their own information into your database.
Database connectivity opens access to data across the Web with a minimum of programming. By standard methods, if you want to present information besides buttons and pointers on a page, you must manually create the page and tell the Web server where to put the information, which information to use, and how you want the information displayed. Even automated word-processor conversion programs can be a pain for lengthy and complicated documents, and if you want custom designs for things such as catalogs, you have to program every line. Database connectivity packages eliminate tedious programming by automating HTML page generation and dynamically creating pages according to the data being viewed. What's more, the same techniques of data entry and retrieval will let you support online conferencing and automate activity tracking on your site. As a result, you can see who's doing what and where.
Two of the leading database-access tools on the Web are dbWeb from Aspect Software Engineering and Cold Fusion from Allaire. We won't do a head-to-head comparison of the two here, although both more or less do the same thing, because they are fundamentally different programs. dbWeb is ideally suited for automated data display and retrieval, and Cold Fusion is best as a tool for data entry, custom display programming, and advanced data retrieval.
You can easily go crazy with all the advanced features available in both Cold Fusion and dbWeb, so don't overdo it. We've seen several examples on the Web where going feature-crazy drags down system performance tremendously, so please exhibit some self-restraint when using these packages.
dbWeb 1.0
dbWeb supports HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) servers,
including Alibaba, EMWAC HTTPS, Netscape Communications Server,
Process Software's Purveyor, O'Reilly's Website, and others conforming
to HTML standards. It also supports several databases, including
Microsoft SQL Server 4.2, Sybase, Oracle, Microsoft Access, and
others supporting 32-bit Open Database Connectivity (ODBC).
dbWeb installation and setup is straightforward: You can load it from
floppy or from an archive file that you can find at Aspect's Web
site. The key that Aspect gives you will let you unlock dbWeb
with either a standard license or for a 30-day trial period. The
program prompts you for information about your Web server and
automatically loads Microsoft's ODBC Setup utility (32-bit, version
2.5). You must configure dbWeb yourself according to your database
needs by installing the proper drivers. You also have a dbWeb
Service that is set to manual by default, but you'll probably
want to change it to automatic to save time if you have to reboot
your system.
Configuration
Once you have dbWeb up and running, you can launch the dbWeb Administrator.
It will greet you with
one of the package's best features: its clean and easy-to-use
graphical interface, which you can see in screen 1. This program's
forte is data presentation, which makes it an excellent Web data
visualization tool. With it, you can make your data available
on the Web without any CGI or HTML programming in hardly any time
at all. If you want to customize your site, setting up your data
will take a little longer. In that case, you'll need to design
your own, more static HTML pages.
Basically, you tell dbWeb where
the data is by defining an ODBC data source and an automated wizard
steps you through the setup routine. You can use predefined setups
for viewing data, called schemas, that tell dbWeb how to organize
and present information in HTML pages, or you can design your
own setups with the schema editor. Most of dbWeb's magic occurs
when it generates custom HTML pages on the fly.
Schemas are the
gateways between the user and the data. With them, you tell dbWeb
the name of your data source and which columns of your data you
want to display. You can select whether to display your data as
a tabular listing, free form, in a single record, or in some other
fashion. You can also select what relationships you'll use. A
relationship, or Drilldown SmartLink as dbWeb calls it, lets you
be more specific about the data you retrieve and drill down from
general topics to exact information.
For example, if you start
with a general topic about all the consulting firms in Colorado,
you can drill down to those with more than 100 people, then down
again to the managers at those firms. All this data can be in
your central database, or you can actually drill across to other
database files, other schemas, or other servers on your network,
or even across the Web to a specific Universal Resource Locator
(URL).
Once you format the schema, you're ready to begin querying
your data. When you access your database home page, dbWeb will
intervene and present the screen that you designed in the schema.
You can enter search criteria and dbWeb will return a custom page
with the information you requested and links to more specific
data. All this occurs without any CGI or HTML programming. You
can navigate the pages as if they had been designed for each entry,
even though they're completely dynamic.
Features
The Schema Editor
allows you a great deal of latitude in presenting and entering
data, but recognize that in dbWeb this flexibility presents a
security risk. If you let some users insert, update, and delete
information from the database, your data is unfortunately open
to anyone who wants to access it. To ensure some security, you
can disable data actions and allow only queries, but then you
lose a level of interactivity. Another solution is to set up password
protection for data entry with a custom HTML page. This action
separates data entry from retrieval, so you can maintain some
security.
dbWeb supports most basic query operations available
in standard databases, including Query by Example (QBE), joins,
tables (for multiple tables within a single data source), and
computed data (deriving new columns from existing data). You can
enhance your data presentation with special fonts, layouts, and
graphics, and multi-record forms by designing a custom Database
Format File (DBX), which lets you further alter the look and feel
of your QBE entries and results (e.g., tables and free form and
tabular listings).
Looking Good
dbWeb is an outstanding visualization
tool. It lets you put your database online quickly with a decent-looking
interface, minimum hassle, and no programming. The documentation
is excellent-you can find it online in Microsoft Word format-and
the program provides enough sample files to show you its features.
We had some problems with initial setup and with loading our own
data, but Aspect's technical-support people stepped us through.
The program does, however, have room for improvement. Some data
security features and multimedia handlers would be nice so that
you could present graphics and other data with your text, including
pictures in catalogs or pointers to downloadable files. You could
custom-code such features into your pages, but that action would
defeat the purpose of this nicely interactive and automated program.
This package is great if you hope to increase your productivity
over the Web by making information available to clients and customers,
especially if you don't want to get bogged down by heavy-duty
CGI and HTML programming.
Cold FusionPro 1.5 Beta 4
Cold Fusion
Pro Beta 4.0 (CFP) installs like most other programs these days,
using the standard interface that the Install-It and Install-Shield
programs made popular. If you are not familiar with these, they
simply lead you through a series of straightforward questions
so that you can supply directory information and other necessary
configuration parameters.
The installation tries to detect which
HTTP server(s) you have installed. We installed CFP on Netscape
Commerce Server 1.1, Netscape Communications Server 1.1, and Microsoft
Internet Server Beta 2.
On the Netscape installations, CFP failed
to recognize the server, and we had to supply the information
manually. CFP recognized the Microsoft Internet Server without
a problem, and the Internet Server configuration supplied the
appropriate information.
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