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On the subject of databases behind Intranets and Internet sites, two other
pointers:
1) Information Builders, the makers of FOCUS and the EDA database connectivity
tools, have developed a Web server that talks to IBM mainframe databases. I
don't know the details on it, but since they have built interfaces to virtually
every database product that runs on MVS or VM, I'd assume that this tool gives
you some pretty slick access to those data sources. Since they have built it
around their EDA/SQL product line, it may in fact provide an access point to
**any** database information available on a corporate server. The product is
called EDA/Weblink and you can find info at www.ibi.com.
2) I am currently working on a project using BASISplus and WEBServer from
Information Dimensions, or Dublin, OH. You can check them out at
www.idi.oclc.org. BASISplus is a document database that can work with both
structured (ie, SGML, HTML) data and unstructured (ie, Word, Frame, etc)
document sources. The Web server component points into the data base and can
search and retrieve documents using links that are embedded search commands,
not hard-coded pointers. In practice, this can make site maintenance a whole
heck of a lot easier.
One of the ideas that we have been kicking around is applying a spider to roam
the Intranet and automatically funnel content (or pointers) from various
servers w/i the enterprise back to the database. That would allow an
organization to establish one central database that could server as the
library, if you will, for all the server-based information in the organization.
And neat thing of course is that you would not have to build it and maintain it
by hand. The human role could be focused on maintaining things like the
corporate info policies and other value-adding activities.
Best regards,
/chet
Chet Ensign
Logical Design Solutions
465 South Street http://www.lds.com
Morristown, NJ 07960 censign -at- lds -dot- com [email]
201-971-0100 [Phone] 201-971-0103 [FAX]
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