Wake up your Web page
If your Web server is part of your business solutions, you'd better have a
database engine connected to it--or you're toast. Without database connectivity,
personalizing and customizing your Web presence is an overwhelming task, and "personalize,
customize" is now the Webmaster's mantra.
In case you haven't heard, static Web pages are about as exciting as
Lawrence Welk's 20-year reunion show. To see how database connectivity can jazz
up your Web page, look at the Microsoft Network home page, www.msn.com.
"So what," you say. "I'm just setting up a corporate
intranet. All I want is our company phone list and maybe some employee benefits
information on a Web page. Why do I need a database?"
Well, go ahead and create Web pages for every possible phone list and
employee benefit. But can't you just hear your users soon demanding the
capability to search by first name, or maybe department, or last name, and on
and on? Then your company has a hiring spree, and you're spending so much time
updating your static pages that you can't handle all the new requests, including
a new job posting page and a 401K page complete with pie charts and bar graphs
to plot progress.
So what's the answer? Database connectivity. With a database managing all
the information and with a database connectivity product such as WebBase or CGI
PerForm, you can dynamically display information any way you or your users see
fit.
Connecting a database to a Web server is pretty easy. Many available
packages make it as easy as installing Web server software. We reviewed two of
these packages (see "dbWeb 1.0 and Cold Fusion 1.5," Windows
NT Magazine, April 1996). Microsoft purchased dbWeb after our review,
and will release it as Microsoft dbWeb. Two other outstanding packages are CGI
PerForm (visit http://www.rtis.com/w3toolkit/perform)
and WebBase by ExperTelligence (at >http://www.webbase.com).
Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) lets all these packages provide excellent
database integration and connectivity. Standard ODBC drivers that come with NT
and most database engines let WebBase support more than 50 databases.
So how does database and Web connectivity work? All these database
connectivity products have unique charms, but most work the same way.
Let's take WebBase, retrieve some information from a table, and display it
as a dynamic Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) page. This example works with a
standard Web page that asks users to input an employee name (such as Denny) to
search for. This page is created with standard HTML, except that the Submit
button does the following GET request from the WebBase server:
http://test.com:80/getname.htf?name=Denny
The special file GETNAME.HTF controls how to query the data and how you want
to store the returned information. Here's an example .HTF file:
<HTML>
<HEAD>
{sql to answers source 'Primary'
user 'Administrator'
password
'Secret' max 25}
SELECT * FROM Examples where
name LIKE '%(name)%''
{/sql}
<TITLE> WebBase Demo Results
</TITLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
<H2> Search Results for
{%search%} </H2>
{forRow aRow on answers}
<HR><PRE>
Name: <B>{Name}</B>
Extension: <B>{Extn}</B>
Email Address: <B>{Email}</B>
</PRE>{/forRow}
</BODY>
</HTML>
WebBase substitutes the variable Denny for (name) and performs the
SQL select from the Companies table of the Primary ODBC data source. The query
will return up to 25 records. This feature is very important--as you know if you
ever get a query that returns 10,000 records. Imagine building that Web page at
14.4Kbits per second!
Next, theforRow construct loops through the results. The variable aRow
takes on each result as the query returns it. For the place holders {Name},
{Extn}, and {Email}, WebBase substitutes the values that the query returns from
the table. Now you have Web database connectivity.
You don't need a quad-processor Alpha system with 10GB of disk space to run
a database engine. A 486 with a modest amount of RAM and disk space will do the
job. For software, start with a readily available product such as Microsoft
Access. All the software packages I mentioned support Access via ODBC. This
setup lets you handle simple queries and small databases at low volume, but it's
a start. Once you get a taste of what database connectivity can do for your Web
pages, you'll never let your users choke on static pages again.
Off the Shelf
Another product that lets you turn the unintelligible gibberish that is a
log file into meaningful information is WebTrends from e.g.Software. Download a
full, working, 15-day trial version at http://www.webtrends.com.
The only limit is the trial period. You can create reports that vary in style
and complexity: from a simple list of who accessed your Web site and what they
did (translated from a log file into plain English) to full-color 3D bar charts
detailing users by country, state, and even city. WebTrends also gets as
detailed as you want, providing reverse Domain Name System (DNS) lookup at
report time (so your server doesn't have to waste time doing it). WebTrends also
translates those pesky error codes like "403" into meaningful English,
like "error 403, failed forbidden." Add event scheduling for
translating the log files (handy if you have a big site) and extensive filtering
capabilities, and you have a package any Webmaster will give a home page for. As
a matter of fact, if you provide a link from your home page to WebTrends' home
page (http://www.egsoftware.com), the
company will give you a 50% discount off the list price. For more information,
email info@egsoftware.com.
When your Web server generates terse information in a log file, another
product, DistStat, turns it into statistical information that you can distribute
by email to any number of people. If you are hosting pages or Web sites for
other businesses or vendors, this tool can be very useful. Get an evaluation
copy at http://www.rtis.com/nat/software/diststat/docs/eval.htm.