Reader: Where are Web tools for the rest of us?

TalkBack 5 of 15:

Next »

« Previous

• Thread View
• Flat View

Well, I agree that Java

is a real pain, slow, and a beast to fully implement, and that other real database companies need to come out with easier tools, but Oracle is beginning to move that way now with their (FREE) HTML DB package. Being an Oracle product, it will run on virtually every kind of hardware/software combination there is, and HTML DB gets installed within the database, so if you eventually migrate your database from one hardware/software platform to another, you haven't lost anything as it all goes with the database (and your data). All that's required is the Oracle database and a web server (Oracle supplies the FREE Apache web server with Oracle specific "tweaks").

I haven't played with Filemaker myself, that's done by the Filemaker "guru's" at headquarters, but after figuring out what we wanted from the database, and how we wanted/needed the database to be used, they gave up on Filemaker and told us to continue with Oracle, since we HAVE to be able to exchange data on the fly with other SQL databases and have the built-in integration with several different mapping programs. We needed the seamless back-and-forth connectivity with various other software programs, with only ONE set of data, instead of the real set of data and then the Filemaker version of the data and the complicated routines to get modified data back from Filemaker and compare with the real set of data in the Oracle databases, and then determine if anybody else had made changes to real data since the last Filemaker export (which took 18 hours) before modifying the original data. One of our "guru's" at headquarters aske the folks at Filemaker about better connectivity with Oracle databases, so there would only be ONE copy of the data, instead of two, and they told him they had no intentions of ever building that capability, that was their niche market, grabbing data but not sharing it easily.

The "enterprise capable at a certain scale" is 250 users and only 125 database files. While each file can hold multiple tables, from what I've seen, Filemaker also has to create it's own indexes instead of utilizing the backend databases indexes.

I see they did add the capability finally to let the server perform the searches, instead of sending it all to the client to perform the search, so that's a big improvement.

All of this is really like comparing apple to apple blossoms though, depending on what ares of functionality are being looked at. The quick screen design features are nice, but almost everything else Filemaker offers is currently available with numerous other products, which are much more scalable and not as (platform) limited.

Oracle already does the SSL and can integrate with Active Directory. You can even run Oracle on a Unix box and use the Active Directory creditionals from your Windows domain controller. Oracle comes with it's version of the free Apache web server, but if you don't like that for whatever reason, you can still get your Oracle data served through any other web server, though you have a bit more work.

Posted by: wbfergus@...   Posted on: 06/28/04 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

Alert moderator to an offensive message

Subscribe to this discussion via Email or RSS

SponsoredWhite Papers, Webcasts, and Downloads

• Implementing Software RAID on Dell PowerEdge Servers Dell Software RAID is an inexpensive storage method offering fault tolerance ... Download Now
• University College Supports Learning and Increases Enrolment by 6 Percent With Reliable Student Notebook Incentive Dell The college of St Mark and St John (Marjon) wanted to attract new students ... Download Now
• Simplifying PC Support and Procurement Dell Simon Fraser University wanted to standardize its Microsoft Windows-based ... Download Now