Webify Your Database Best practices to attach your database on the web

Evolutionary Path Stone Age – Simple, manual processing. Bronze Age – Automated transfers quasi real-time. Iron Age – Black Plague strikes -Two separate systems. Industrial Age - Real time integration Hybrid 21 st Century – XML Web Services – Lingua Franca of the web.

Stone Age - Paleolithic Era-Crawling

Stone Age - Paleolithic-Crawling Is relatively low cost Can often utilize existing resources. Ok for low volume websites Fulfillment house manually processes the transactions. New Orders only Bad for high volume websites No gatekeeping capability Batch processing Transfer data via FTP or UpsideDownside

Stone Age – Neolithic Era-Walking

Real time (self) Create and show past history Renew, pay bill Limited gatekeeping Publisher can touch data-redundancy More complex than Paleolithic Era Batch processing Logic for synching databases Still Manual transactions with /FTP UpsideDownside

Bronze Age - Automate those transfers

Closer to real-time Gatekeeping improved Create and show current history Renew, pay bill No manual transactions Publisher can touch data - redundancy More complex Batch processing Logic for synching databases UpsideDownside

Iron Age- Two systems. Too Messy.

Iron Age- Two systems. Too Messy Conceptually OK Publisher can touch data –redundancy (if you can trust it) More complex Batch processing Logic for synching databases Duplicated Business Rules Twice (or more) of the amount of work. Databases WILL get out of synch UpsideDownside

Industrial Age –Automated Integration

Conceptually OK Redundancy Publisher can touch data Databases will stay in synch Simpler than Iron Age Batch processing Logic for processing refresh file UpsideDownside

21 st Century–XML Web Services

Real time – timely data Uses XML standard Publisher can touch data Multiple vendors & partners access data No data synch issues Central repository for business rules Multi-pub access w/integrated database Technical Expertise and time to implement UpsideDownside

How to make it happen Which way is best for you? (Choose your Era) - A few options - Talk to your in-house technical staff Hire a consultant to help. Talk to your fulfillment house about their capabilities. Many have qualified technical staff, knowledge of your product and would welcome the opportunity.

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