At Wordsworth Books, Kharbanda chose to isolate the bookstore's internal network from the Internet as a safety measure. The inventory database for Web users is replicated on a regular basis from the database that store employees access. This involved some programming to create batch files and scripts, but Kharbanda prefers it from a security standpoint. What the Future Holds Boosting customer service and employee productivity are two big justifications for linking a database to a Web site, and gaining valuable experience is another. Before long, however, many users will want to incorporate new technology into their sites.
Interaction brings new levels of complexity.
The database has to deal with the complexity in a flexible way. Relational databases are unable to cope with that world. As a result, knowledge gained today for deploying database information across the Web will be invaluable as the Web and databases both evolve. Learning the basics of providing those solutions will prepare you for tomorrow. Howard Baldwin, based in Silicon Valley, has written about almost every computer platform at one time or another.