has used the web for operations, scheduling, data analysis, fault resolution, and system conversion (everything except marketing).

General comments

In many cases, web-based interfaces to relational  databases present significant advantages as they can offer:

• low cost of development
• low training costs
• vendor neutrality

Web-based conversion from Informix to Oracle

At a cable advertising firm, a conversion from Informix to Oracle was mandated for corporate reasons (it was felt the disparate corporate databases would be in better harmony if they were all from the same vendor).

At the time, relatively few reporting tools worked against both Informix and Oracle. After looking at ODBC and ESQL/C, what seemed simplest was to

1. rewrite all of the existing Informix 4GL code in Perl (a very flexible language),
2. validate the Perl code against the existing Informix 4GL code base,
3. repoint the Perl from Informix to Oracle (the one easy step in the process, actually),
4. and identify and manage the numerous subtle differences between the Informix and Oracle flavors of SQL.

One benefit of using web-based approaches was that the web interfaces imposed almost no training overheads: most of the operators were already expert surfers.

Other uses

Web-based data analysis, scheduling, and operational fault analysis elsewhere.

In general, has been very happy with web-based reporting. These are easy to create and easy for people to understand.

Summary

has used web-based tools for operations, scheduling, data analysis, fault resolution, and system conversion (everything except marketing).