Integrating the World Wide Web and database technology

The recent popularity of the World Wide Web (WWW, or the Web) has created a massive increase in both the supply and demand of Web-based technologies. However, the HyperText Markup Language (HTML) used to construct the Web has limitations that challenge information content providers who want to supply current, up-to-date information with minimal administrative overhead. A powerful, extensible solution to many of these challenges is the use of a database as a back end, or data source, for Web applications. Combining the Web with a database maximizes the strengths of its components. From the Web perspective, this combination offers user friendliness, cross-platform compatibility, and high-speed prototyping capabilities. From the database perspective, it offers relational data manipulation, high-speed search capabilities, and industrial-grade data input and retrieval. This paper describes experiences of application developers working at NCR, formerly AT&T Global Information Solutions. It also analyzes the strengths and weaknesses of the Web/database combination and seeks to prove that this combination is a viable alternative for providing database-oriented solutions.