Click, click, click…
Ever wondered where your click “goes”?
In the traditional sense, in an offline database system, your "click" comes in contact with application programs such as Windows folders to reach out for data, retrieve it and present it back to you.
However, on the internet, when you go online shopping at your favourite online shop, you are in fact reaching out for the shop’s database. Your click, which is a user generated input, traverses a predefined path that comprises of hardware and software, towards the shop’s information system, which is the database. Of course the façade, that is the webpage browser, is aesthetically designed, and it completely conceals the underlying world of codes and computer systems.
(Idaho Department of Commerce)(InformedBuying.com)(Lamb)(Reynolds)In the DBMS is where the actual data resides, and data, that is the image of a dress on a mannequin, the size , color and the other details are stored in an efficient way. The good housekeeping ideology of ‘A place for everything and everything in its place’ in databases enables us to have a smooth shopping experience, be it updating the quantity of the pair of shoes, or editing the contents of the virtual shopping cart when we change our mind.
As internet browsers the only thing we come across is the website which has been enhanced with user experience, user interface and information architecture and marketing concepts however backstage there are layers of software, hardware, programming modules and normalized tables of database.
Internet or non-internet environment, the DBMS which handles volumes of data is an organized system that we never come across directly.
Just as the very concept of the medium for database evolved so did the concept of PC interaction with internet and DB evolve.
Since there are different types of mediums involved here software, hardware, different programming languages, different types of data, a specialized software called middleware is implemented.
In order for the application software running in the Web server to connect with software outside the Web server, there must be agreed upon interfaces, and indeed there are. The original such interface is called the Common Gateway Interface (CGI). Later, another such interface with certain performance advantages was developed, known as the Application Program Interface (API). These interfaces have associated software "scripts" that let them exchange data between the application in the server and the databases controlled by the database server. The connection to the databases could be made directly at this point, but again, with the prospect of different database management systems and different kinds of data involved, it made sense to create another level of standards to smooth out the differences and have one standard way of accessing the data. The most common set of such standards is called Open Database Connectivity (ODBC), which is designed as an interface to relational databases. (Gillenson)
The ODBC connects to the database server which finally connects to the database which is the hub of information.
Everyone talks about the internet and how living without it would be unimaginable. Internet has progressed from luxury to a necessity. But the internet wouldn’t be an enjoyable experience without an effective database management system.
In the back alleys of the internet lies an optimally normalized database table and your “clicks” travels up to it and back.
Reference
Gillenson, Mark L. "7." Fundamentals of Database Management Systems. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2005.
N.pag. Print.
"Internet Shopping -Is Your Credit Card Information Safe!" Internet Shopping.
InformedBuying.com, n.d. Web. 13 Aug. 2012.
<http://www.informedbuying.net/shopping/smart_shopping.htm>.
"Internet Marketing-Your Community's Gateway to the World." Internet Marketing: Idaho
Department of Commerce. Idaho Department of Commerce, n.d. Web.
<http://commerce.idaho.gov/communities/internet-marketing/>.
Lamb, Eric. "Setting Up A Linux Web Server." Made of Everything You're Not. Eric Lamb, n.d.
Web. <http://blog.ericlamb.net/2009/05/setting-up-a-linux-web-server/>.
Reynolds, Warren. "How You Can Avoid Closing Delays and Save Your Home Sale."02038.
Waren Reynolds, n.d. Web. <http://www.02038.com/wp-ontent/uploads/2009/06/middleman.jpg>.
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