computer networks and databases

pog it

okay.. so say you wanted to set up a network of around five computers and create a sort of database that all computers can access .. but a customised database say with customer information.. how do you go about doing this? I would be on for doing whatever tutorials and courses, or do I need a professional to set the thing up?
Is it SQL/PHP of something like Comptia +??

thanks

Biggins

Dbase is probably one of the best multi-user accessable databases to start off doing the job as you have mentioned.
Get a good grounding in Dbase and it will stand to you in learning others.

There are a few that will do what you want, its the learning curve each one possesses which cna be from slight inclinefrom the start to steep and near impossible to climb.

pog it

Thanks a mil for that..I'm gonna look into that and see how I get on

pog it

Hm very hard to find tutorials etc. online for DBase. Amazon has books.. but I was wondering if DBase is much different to Oracle? I'm guessing Oracle is more advanced. And also, can you use SQL in conjunction with DBase?
Cheers!

Feelgood

pog it wrote: »

Hm very hard to find tutorials etc. online for DBase. Amazon has books.. but I was wondering if DBase is much different to Oracle? I'm guessing Oracle is more advanced. And also, can you use SQL in conjunction with DBase?
Cheers!

By the sounds of things its a very small scale database your are after?. Possibly for tracking customers or something?. If its only every going to be 5 computers connecting to it, I would recommend going with Microsoft Access over a Windows workgroup / network.

There is no need to go with Oracle, SQL server or any of the big names if it is just going to be a small scale database. MS Access will do the job, and it would be a lot easier for you to use it if you have little knowledge of databases...

DublinWriter

Biggins wrote: »

Get a good grounding in Dbase and it will stand to you in learning others.

Is dBase still around?!? Are you talking about the dBase that was sold by Ashton-Tate in the early 90's?

DamoKen

there's loads of rdbms out there, some of the more popular would be Oracle, DB2, SQLServer or MySql. Personally I work with the first two but that's in work as these would scale up for 1000's of users and millions of transactions.

You don't sound like you need an enterprise solution, from what you're saying I think you just want a central data repository accessed through a limited number of machines?

Think MSAccess should do you, used it for a college project years ago, was very easy setting up basic forms etc for user interface and at that time scaled up to around 50 concurrent users, may have improved since then but even that should be plenty for you.

To be honest I hadn't heard of dBase in years, it was big in the late 80's and early 90's I thought, didn't think it was used much now, could be wrong though. Is it even relational?

Other choices (and free) could be Hypersql or MySql. Hypersql has the advantage of an extremely small memory footprint, when I used it there was only a command line interface, might be a few free gui's out there though that can be used with it.

Regarding sql, it's common to all standard rdbms, slightly different flavour on each vendor but more or less same syntax.

DamoKen

DamoKen wrote: »

there's loads of rdbms out there, some of the more popular would be Oracle, DB2, SQLServer or MySql. Personally I work with the first two but that's in work as these would scale up for 1000's of users and millions of transactions.

You don't sound like you need an enterprise solution, from what you're saying I think you just want a central data repository accessed through a limited number of machines?

Think MSAccess should do you, used it for a college project years ago, was very easy setting up basic forms etc for user interface and at that time scaled up to around 50 concurrent users, may have improved since then but even that should be plenty for you.

To be honest I hadn't heard of dBase in years, it was big in the late 80's and early 90's I thought, didn't think it was used much now, could be wrong though. Is it even relational?

Other choices (and free) could be Hypersonic or MySql. Hypersonic has the advantage of an extremely small memory footprint, when I used it there was only a command line interface, might be a few free gui's out there though that can be used with it.

Regarding sql, it's common to all standard rdbms, slightly different flavour on each vendor but more or less same syntax.

Sorry, meant Hypersonic, not hypersql which is used with Sybase.

pog it

So is SQL much different from Oracle then? I had got the impression that SQL was a query language that you would use to manipulate information stored in your database system.

I didn't explain what i need the database and network for properly anyway, sorry. The basic idea of what i want it for is say if you had up to 10 computers and the company is an information service and you wanted to have a database that all could access together..and a database that would run a query for you. So say you have a client looking for specific information, I would like to set up keywords somehow and go into that client, click on something like run query and the keywords would bring up the relevant documents. And then if you could publish that information to your client's website or your own? Would access do a customised db system or would Dbase and others be a better solution in that scenario?

seamus

SQL is a language standard. It specifies the language that database writers should be compatible with so that people can write a standard query that should retrieve the same data, regardless what type of database system you're using.

Unfortunately, few database systems support exactly the same version of SQL, so a SQL statement which works on MySQL, may not work on Oracle or on MSSql, and vice-versa. Think of SQL a bit like how English is handled throughout the world. We can speak English, but depending on what country you're in, you may not be understood correctly.

The kind of thing you're looking for is a database system *and* a front-end. A database system (RDBMS) manages the storage of the data and responds to queries. The system will not run queries for you or provide you with an easy "Point-and-click" interface for running queries.

You can get graphical front-ends of a sort for most DB's, but by and large they assume that you understand databases - they don't provide the simple point-and-click interface that you're looking for.

Access is a little bit of an exception to this. You can easily write your own front-end for an access database, within Access.

The trade-off with Access is that it doesn't scale well and of course only runs on Windows. If you're looking at this thing with a view to expanding the number of people who will access it or providing access to it from a website, the using an Access database is not the best way to start out.

I get the feeling that you're looking for a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system. These systems store information about clients as well as quotations and invoices and such. There are a number of these that can be downloaded for free and installed as an internal website that all of your computers can access.

I'm not sure what skill level you're at, so I don't know how much more information you'd need.

pog it

Appreciate the help everyone.

pog it

Hey again guys, I am looking into doing a course in relational databases and SQL.. but I was wondering if ye would recommend learning html before I do this course?

Tom Dunne

pog it wrote: »

Hey again guys, I am looking into doing a course in relational databases and SQL.. but I was wondering if ye would recommend learning html before I do this course?

In short, no.

But that's not the full story.

Briefly, you are looking for a database system that end-users can enter and retrieve data. In computer theory (yes, I am in lecturer mode ), there are various ways this can be done, one of which is the Three-tier model. You have a front-end (i.e. what the user sees), a middle-tier (where the business logic is carried out) and the back-end, where the data is stored, this is the database.

You have many, many options, not all of which are suited to your situation, but all of which will do what you want.

For example, you could have an Oracle database, an Oracle Application server and a web-browser. This would do what you want, but cost thousands of Euro.

You could use Microsoft SQL server, a Microsoft Web server with ASP and again a web browser, this would be cheaper.

You could go the free route and use MySQL, Apache with PHP, again with a web browser.

Or, and this is what I would recommend for 5 users, Microsoft Access. It combines (to a certain extent) all of the three tiers in one package.

So, to answer your question, no, you don't have to learn HTML. But it all depends on what option you choose to implement.