Getting it all connected
The idea of making information available applies not only to adding a database backend to a Web site, but also to making your current databases accessible to the outside world through a Web browser.
This content can then be made available to employees via an intranet; to partners, suppliers, and customers through an extranet; or to customers and the general public over the Internet.
The structure of your current systems has the greatest impact on the architecture required to make these systems interact with the Web, says Ursula Paddon, IBM's market manager for data management. "Where does all the data live that you want to bring to the Web? In what condition is it? What are the performance requirements?"
When choosing architecture, Paddon believes the top three criteria that need to be addressed are:
- Availability;
- Scalability and performance; and
- Flexibility of your database structure.
The most important precautions to ensure availability are well-planned backup and recovery systems, she says. "How can you keep up 24x7, particularly when you want to do trading over the Web? There are many different types of recovery services you can deploy, like split mirror imaging, where you need to copy your whole database into another database so you can switch across at any time and any point of failure."
Because the majority of businesses' back-end systems are heterogenous, bringing them to the Web requires an architecture that can span multiple platforms. "Your transactional data probably lives somewhere in an ERP system or some transactional system, [whereas] your documents or images may live in other systems," Paddon says. "How do you bring this information together in a way that still keeps up the performance for building dynamic Web pages, for example?
"There may be an architectural discussion, but from a database perspective that means you've got to have cross-platform support, you've got to have the ability to move from NT to Unix to Linux to wherever the market takes you."
Another big performance issue is the amount of data that needs to be archived. Legislative requirements add volumes to the amount of data that needs to be stored, says Paddon. "Let's say you have a trading Web site and you have a special offer today and you replace it with another one tomorrow. The legislation requires you to keep track of that. Then there is privacy legislation--you'll have a huge pressure that will force you to have a very structured environment that's also very safe."
"You need to have a different outlook on the database seeding your Web site because it will become far more complex and extended than it used to be. Because you'll be catering to large volumes of data this maintaining and managing it," she says.
