Ensonix performs database design for many purposes, but mainly we build dynamic, database-driven web sites using Microsoft SQL, MySQL, and PostGre SQL as the database server. These are all relational-database server systems allowing a great deal of flexibility in the data that can be stored, searched, presented and manipulated on your website. Ensonix develops web applications to communicate and retrieve data from the databases using ASP.Net, JAVA and PHP scripting. We can also enable remote access to databases using web services, which opens up new possibilities for allowing your customers and clients to access and work with your data. Each method has its advantages, and we will present the best one for your business requirements.
Building a database-driven web site has a number of advantages over a regular, static HTML site, but also has a number of disadvantages, mostly increased development time, costs, and performance issues.
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Advantages of Database-driven Web Sites
Disadvantages of Database-driven Web Sites
The Ensonix Database Design Process
Speed of Publishing New Content
Database-driven web sites increase the speed with which new content can be put on the web. There is no need to design and build a new page to get new content onto the web. The new information is simply published to the database and the web application takes care of retreiving the new information from the database and formatting it in the appropriate style for presentation in the visitor's web browser.
Quality of New Information
Adding rules to the database to control who can add, edit, delete, review and publish new content to the web allows a form of quality control over your web site's content. The information provided to the visitor is guaranteed to be more accurate and up-to-date.
Functionality
A database-driven web site increases the possibilities for adding functionality to a web site. Instead of simply displaying a catalogue of products, for example, you can allow visitors to see how many of each item you have in stock, to view accurate and up-to-date pricing, to configure various build-to-order options, and to place orders on your website, without having to visit or call your store. Databases are also responsible for providing search-like functionality on websites.
Maintenance
There is no need to replace and update outdated links on hundreds of pages everytime you add, delete or move content on your web site. You simply make the changes in the database, and the web application takes care of the rest.
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Not All Information Benefits from being Database Driven
Some content may not need to be updated or added to regularly, in which case building a database to hold content and an application to display it is unnecessarily complex.
For instance, a small business merely wishing to inform web site visitors about their company, list a few company details and directions for finding the office will not need a database driven website. However, a small business that is constantly producing new products or requires customer ordering functionality will benefit from a database.
Increased Development Time and Costs
Although the speed at which new content can be added to a database-driven site is increased, the time needed to develop the database and the functionality can increase the initial development time and therefore the costs of the project. Similarly, we are no longer building a simple HTML page, but writing complex computer code to access the database and integrating that with HTML web code. This process is more time-consuming and error-prone, and may require a long period of debugging and security testing.
In addition, web solutions using Microsoft's SQL Server or Oracle on dedicated servers come with the additional cost of the database software, which is very expensive. Costs can be reduced on shared hosting plans with a hosting company, though performance then becomes an issue as you are sharing the database with every other website on the same server. Using an open-sourced database like MySQL is a cheaper option, though it is not considered as robust as the higher priced options.
For these reasons, database-driven web sites tend to be more expensive initially, though they may pay for themselves over time.
Performance
With a static HTML site, a visitor requests the web page, and the server sends the web page, the only limit on the speed of this response is the web server's processor speed, RAM and the number of concurrent requests. To serve a web site faster, you simply add more load-balanced servers to share the load, and the performance increase is linear for each new server added to the system.
Adding a database to a website creates a performance bottleneck. When a visitor requests a web page, the server must interpret the page to see if any action needs to be taken, retrieve data from the database if necessary, create the page with the added data, format it correctly, and then send it to the visitor's browser. This can add a considerable performance overhead, and if the database is designed incorrectly, can lead to a significant slowdown of your web site.
Again, costs can increase when attempting to solve this bottleneck, due to the complexity of syncronizing multiple databases.
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An Ensonix database developer and a web developer will work with you over the course of several meetings to define your business requirements and begin the initial process of developing a database to suit your needs. Constant review of the developing database and the database stored in it ensures that the final database design works the way you expect it to work, yet is flexible enough to add further complexity to at a later date.
The web developer can then continue the design process with his team to develop the web application that interfaces with your database and presents the database to your internal users, and your web visitors.
The entire process can take as little as two weeks to as much as 6 months or longer, depending on the size of the project, the number of revisions, and your budget. Following the initial consultation with Ensonix, you will receive a detailed proposal containing the estimated time to completion and the costs for the project. Changes to the project made during the development process may incur extra charges for the increased development time, and will be subject to a change order which requires approval.
If you wish to meet with an Ensonix representative for a free, no-obligation consultation about your database design requirements, please call or email us to arrange a meeting or use the contact form on this web site.
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