Database solutions and Database development
Most applications feature a custom designed relational database system at the core. Databases are the power house of the applications and provide a unique flavor to the user experience. IT & BPO Solutions has a strong database development team that specializes in developing and deploying cutting edge database solutions catered to your setup.
Database development is not a process but an art. We understand and appreciate what databases can and can not do. We develop database solutions that are light-weight, normalized, fast, scalable and agile. IT & BPO Solutions' database developers think about the future while developing today. We'll leave enough room and scope in the solution so that your evolving requirements can be easily accomodated as you grow. Our database solutions scale to your needs.
There are several industry-grade database options available. We are not tied to a particular vendor and are NOT paid to use a particular database. We do not finalize an implementation until we've had a chance to study your existing setup (if any), the requirements, scalability needs and other parameters. We strongly believe that every client situation is unique and we commit to a path after we've made sure that there is no other better way of doing it.
Whether you're new to databases or a veteran user of database solutions, IT & BPO Solutions offers software, support, training and consulting to make you successful.
MySQL database
The MySQL database has become the world's most popular open source database because of its consistent fast performance, high reliability and ease of use. It's used by individual Web developers as well as many of the world's largest and fastest-growing organizations to save time and money powering their high-volume Web sites, business-critical systems and packaged software.
Not only is MySQL the world's most popular open source database, it's also become the database of choice for a new generation of applications built on the LAMP stack (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP / Perl / Python) MySQL runs on more than 20 platforms including Linux, Windows, OS/X, HP-UX, AIX, Netware, giving you the kind of flexibility that puts you in control.
Free-software projects that require a full-featured database management system often use MySQL. Such projects include (for example) WordPress, phpBB, Drupal and other software built on the LAMP software stack. MySQL is also used in many high-profile, large-scale World Wide Web products including Wikipedia, Google and Facebook.
MySQL is written in C, and C++. Many programming languages with language-specific APIs include libraries for accessing MySQL databases[examples needed]. In addition, an ODBC interface called MyODBC allows additional programming languages that support the ODBC interface to communicate with a MySQL database, such as ASP or ColdFusion. The HTSQL - URL based query method also ships with MySQL adapter allowing direct interaction with MySQL database from any web client via structured URLs. The MySQL server and official libraries are mostly implemented in ANSI C/ANSI C++.
MySQL can be built and installed manually from source code, but this can be tedious so it is more commonly installed from a binary package unless special customizations are required. On most Linux distributions the package management system can download and install MySQL with minimal effort, though further configuration is often required to adjust security and optimization settings.
Though MySQL began as a low-end alternative to more powerful proprietary databases, it has gradually evolved to support higher-scale needs as well.
It is still most commonly used in small to medium scale single-server deployments, either as a component in a LAMP based web application or as a standalone database server. Much of MySQL's appeal originates in its relative simplicity and ease of use, which is enabled by an ecosystem of open source tools such as phpMyAdmin.
In the medium range, MySQL can be scaled by deploying it on more powerful hardware, such as a multi-processor server with gigabytes of memory.
PostgreSQL database
PostgreSQL is a powerful, open source relational database system. It has more than 15 years of active development and a proven architecture that has earned it a strong reputation for reliability, data integrity, and correctness. It runs on all major operating systems, including Linux, UNIX (AIX, BSD, HP-UX, SGI IRIX, Mac OS X, Solaris, Tru64), and Windows. It has native programming interfaces for C/C++, Java, .Net, Perl, Python, Ruby, Tcl, ODBC, among others, and exceptional documentation.
An enterprise class database, PostgreSQL boasts sophisticated features such as Multi-Version Concurrency Control (MVCC), point in time recovery, tablespaces, asynchronous replication, nested transactions (savepoints), online/hot backups, a sophisticated query planner/optimizer, and write ahead logging for fault tolerance. It is highly scalable both in the sheer quantity of data it can manage and in the number of concurrent users it can accommodate. There are active PostgreSQL systems in production environments that manage in excess of 4 terabytes of data.
Oracle database
The Oracle Database (commonly referred to as Oracle RDBMS or simply as Oracle) is a relational database management system (RDBMS) produced and marketed by Oracle Corporation. It's a proprietary database system written in C/C++, and is multi-lingual. Larry Ellison and his friends and former co-workers Bob Miner and Ed Oates started the consultancy Software Development Laboratories (SDL) in 1977. SDL developed the original version of the Oracle software. The name Oracle comes from the code-name of a CIA-funded project Ellison had worked on while previously employed by Ampex.
Oracle database system-identified by an alphanumeric system identifier or SID - comprises at least one instance of the application, along with data storage. An instance-identified persistently by an instantiation number comprises a set of operating-system processes and memory-structures that interact with the storage. Typical processes include PMON (the process monitor) and SMON (the system monitor).
Users of the Oracle databases refer to the server-side memory-structure as the SGA (System Global Area). The SGA typically holds cache information such as data-buffers, SQL commands, and user information. In addition to storage, the database consists of online redo logs (or logs), which hold transactional history. Processes can in turn archive the online redo logs into archive logs (offline redo logs), which provide the basis (if necessary) for data recovery and for some forms of data replication.
If the Oracle database administrator has implemented Oracle RAC (Real Application Clusters), then multiple instances, usually on different servers, attach to a central storage array. This scenario offers advantages such as better performance, scalability and redundancy. However, support becomes more complex, and many sites do not use RAC. In version 10g, grid computing introduced shared resources where an instance can use (for example) CPU resources from another node (computer) in the grid.
The Oracle DBMS can store and execute stored procedures and functions within itself. PL/SQL (Oracle Corporation's proprietary procedural extension to SQL), or the object-oriented language Java can invoke such code objects and/or provide the programming structures for writing them.
Oracle database conventions refer to defined groups of object ownership (generally associated with a "username") as schemas.
Microsoft SQL (MSSQL) Server
Microsoft SQL Server is a relational model database server produced by Microsoft. Its primary query languages are T-SQL and ANSI SQL.
SQL Server 2005 (codenamed Yukon), released in October 2005, is the successor to SQL Server 2000. It included native support for managing XML data, in addition to relational data. For this purpose, it defined an xml data type that could be used either as a data type in database columns or as literals in queries. XML columns can be associated with XSD schemas; XML data being stored is verified against the schema. XML is converted to an internal binary data type before being stored in the database. Specialized indexing methods were made available for XML data. XML data is queried using XQuery; Common Language Runtime (CLR) integration was a main features with this edition, enabling one to write SQL code as Managed Code by the CLR. SQL Server 2005 added some extensions to the T-SQL language to allow embedding XQuery queries in T-SQL. In addition, it also defines a new extension to XQuery, called XML DML, that allows query-based modifications to XML data. SQL Server 2005 also allows a database server to be exposed over web services using TDS packets encapsulated within SOAP (protocol) requests. When the data is accessed over web services, results are returned as XML.
The newer versions of SQL Server, aim to make data management self-tuning, self organizing, and self maintaining with the development of SQL Server Always On technologies, to provide near-zero downtime. SQL Server 2008 also includes support for structured and semi-structured data, including digital media formats for pictures, audio, video and other multimedia data. In current versions, such multimedia data can be stored as BLOBs (binary large objects), but they are generic bitstreams. Intrinsic awareness of multimedia data will allow specialized functions to be performed on them. According to Paul Flessner, senior Vice President, Server Applications, Microsoft Corp., SQL Server 2008 can be a data storage backend for different varieties of data: XML, email, time/calendar, file, document, spatial, etc as well as perform search, query, analysis, sharing, and synchronization across all data types.
Other new data types include specialized date and time types and a Spatial data type for location-dependent data. Better support for unstructured and semi-structured data is provided using the new FILESTREAM data type, which can be used to reference any file stored on the file system. Structured data and metadata about the file is stored in SQL Server database, whereas the unstructured component is stored in the file system. Such files can be accessed both via Win32 file handling APIs as well as via SQL Server using T-SQL; doing the latter accesses the file data as a BLOB. Backing up and restoring the database backs up or restores the referenced files as well. SQL Server 2008 also natively supports hierarchical data, and includes T-SQL constructs to directly deal with them, without using recursive queries.
The Full-Text Search functionality has been integrated with the database engine. According to a Microsoft technical article, this simplifies management and improves performance.
Spatial data will be stored in two types. A "Flat Earth" (GEOMETRY or planar) data type represents geospatial data which has been projected from its native, spherical, coordinate system into a plane. A "Round Earth" data type (GEOGRAPHY) uses an ellipsoidal model in which the Earth is defined as a single continuous entity which does not suffer from the singularities such as the international dateline, poles, or map projection zone "edges".