Virtually every application and web site is supported by a back end database. Some of the more common databases include MS Access, Microsoft SQL Server, MySQL and Oracle.

The most critical factors affecting the performance of an application whether it is a web site or a desktop application is the Databases structure and the mechanisms used to connect to, read from and write to those databases.

SIS design and develop relational databases often to support our software and web development projects
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SIS provides the following database services.

• Recommending a database to suit your architecture and budget
• Archiving services to improve performance
• Back up, restore and replication solutions
• Analysis of usage and implementing indexing to improve performance for the most common queries.
• Database cleansing, identifying duplicates, inconsistencies and tidying up address data via our postcode validation service
• Upsizing of MS Access databases to new versions of MS Access or preferably to Microsoft SQL Server.

Microsoft SQL Server
MS SQL Server is our database of choice and it often comes bundled with Microsoft Small Business Server. The licensing costs for SQL Server can be prohibitively expensive when used as a back end database for a web site. The licensing models are complex but expect to pay in the region of £3000.

Fortunately Microsoft produced SQL Server 2005 Express which is license free. The trade off being that it does not allow for some of the advanced replication features and does have some restrictions e.g. it will only use a single processor and a maximum of 1 GB of memory. SQL Server 2005 express is used to support NOVO our content management application.

MYSQL
Is a powerful license free database and our database of choice for Linux web servers running php web sites.

Oracle
Oracle Databases are at the top end of the database market and the preferred solution for large corporate requirements. The trade off for ultra performance is cost and often the requirement for a dedicated database administrator to maintain the databases. SIS has developed applications using Oracle for Per Una where stock records exceeded 35 million rows.

Microsoft Access Databases -
"You either love them or hate them"
Microsoft Access databases are typically used for small work group applications. They are often developed as a core application by in-house staff with a basic knowledge of IT or a contract developer. The company becomes dependant on the application, the developer leaves and with no in-house skills or documentation the users are left in a very vulnerable position.

How can we help?

• SIS can take on support of the access database.
• SIS can improve its performance using a number of techniques which include archiving, indexing, re-writing the code and splitting the database into client server.
• SIS can update the database to newer version of Microsoft Access for example Microsoft Access 97 to Microsoft Access 2003.
• SIS can upsize the database to Microsoft SQL Server to improve performance and provide a more robust solution, whilst maintaining your valuable historic data.

When should you use Microsoft Access Databases?
If the database is written correctly it can support up to a maximum of about 7 – 10 concurrent users and a maximum of 150,000 records in any particular table.
If the database is used for reference data only i.e. read only it can support hundreds of users.

Microsoft Access is a very rapid application development environment and is often an excellent solution for a small user group who want a functionally rich application on a tight budget. Some clients for whom we have developed MS Access applications are:

Accommodations UK – A hotel booking application which adequately copes with 8 concurrent users and tables exceeding 120,000 records.

WM Harvey Quantity Surveyors – An application to manage the contract, certificate generation and payments for school building projects.

Insite Environments – A Job costing application to estimate and track project revenue and costs.