LCT2506 Internet 2 Data-driven web sites Week 5

LCT2506 Internet 2 Current Practice  Combining web pages and data stored in a relational database is very widely used  Allows us much greater customisation of web page content  User data can be stored and effectively reused

LCT2506 Internet 2 Strengths of databases  Databases offer efficient storage and retrieval of information  Easy and quick to search through large quantities of info to find specific records –“Find all the customers who bought a red Mondeo this year”  Let the database do the work

LCT2506 Internet 2 Powerful features  Can optimise searching by building indexes  Can be very specific in search terms  Database can automatically sort results  Calculate totals and averages of data retrieved  Save you from having to write your own code

LCT2506 Internet 2 Common Setups

LCT2506 Internet 2 ASP + Access  A popular cheap and cheerful setup  Copy of MS Access database can be placed on web server  ASP Pages can store and retrieve data using ActiveX Data Objects (ADO)  Low barriers to entry - just need MS Office  Not suitable for large sites –Access cannot support many users at once –Relatively slow

LCT2506 Internet 2 LAMP  Free/Open Source web solution using: –Linux operating system –Apache web server –MySQL database –PHP/Perl/Python programming language  Widely deployed, powerful and low cost  Often available from hosting companies

LCT2506 Internet 2.NET + MS SQL Server  High-end Microsoft solution  Use.Net framework with VB or C#  Make use of powerful MS SQL Server database  Not a free solution, but MS SQL is a high-end database with sophisticated features

LCT2506 Internet 2 Other options  Possible to link most programming langs with most databases  Possible to use Oracle, DB2, Postgres  Generally have software functions to connect to DB  Can often port (rewrite) sites to use new DB fairly easily

LCT2506 Internet 2 Web Site Uses

LCT2506 Internet 2 Form Filling  Many commercial sites rely on customers entering their details via forms  Can be used to make decisions – e.g. Insurance Quote  Often used as starting point in sales process - for later closure  Can even be a petition to Prime Minister

LCT2506 Internet 2 Catalogue  eCommerce applications use a DB to store product information  Site visitors view pages with product lists (or details) retrieved from DB  Combine with form filling to build complete shopping cart app  Off-the-shelf implementations available

LCT2506 Internet 2 Tracking Behaviour  Many sites track your behaviour without overtly using form filling or accounts  Flickr tracks photos which are popular or ignored to develop interestingness rating  Amazon matches your browsing history with similar users to make recommendations

LCT2506 Internet 2 Search Engine  Highly specialised database application  Contains details of public sites  Able to quickly match relevant sites to search terms

LCT2506 Internet 2 Content Management System  Modern trend in commercial sites  Businesses buy a template based site  Page contents are added as database contents through forms  Content is pulled from DB and placed into templates when users visit

LCT2506 Internet 2 Wikis and Blogs  Similar to CMS in many ways - database content presented via templates  Both rely on contributed content  Blogs simply present user contributions with the most recent entry first  Wikis allow users to alter the content of pages using simple rules

LCT2506 Internet 2.Net Toolkit

LCT2506 Internet 2 Many alternatives .Net allows several approaches  Drag-and-drop tools  Hand-coded database access  Which to use varies on the situation

LCT2506 Internet 2

Datagrid  Can present database search results as tabular data  Optional controls to allow editing  Can add paging functions  Tends to be the simplest view

LCT2506 Internet 2 DataList  Can define a template view for multiple results  Useful in shopping cards  Create formatting rules for data  E.g. Grid of products

LCT2506 Internet 2 FormView  Tabular layout showing a database field per row  Typically used for edit or insert operations

LCT2506 Internet 2 SQL Details  Individual controls can be mapped to one or more queries  Often a SELECT  Also add UPDATE, INSERT and DELETE statements  Can also tie a control to a Stored Procedure