While platforms (hardware/software) can be critical to performance the need for the right answers being delivered in an understandable format and timely manner is the real answer. We have managed or worked with many different database engines: Oracle – Most expensive and largest (muli-million record tables for a large insurance carrier), MySQL – Least expensive and most common, MS SqlServer, Progress, Informix, Sybase, DB2, Access, etc. We’ve worked on many hardware platforms from $500k dollar Solaris platforms with 12 processors to $2,000 dollar MS servers and everything in between.
Case: Using a combination of Oracle and high-end hardware we provided a solution to 3Com. Input was 100’s of separate data sets coming from around the world in different formats. We wrote software that interpreted all of these disparate data sets into one universal database. We then created a web based front-end that allowed both 3Com corporate and their remote employee’s access to this data. The data was presented in different ways to each employee type so that they each were able to receive the most valuable (accounting data for accountants, sales data for sales, decision data for management, etc.).
