Advanced Web Design: A Primer

Database Servers

A database is, in basic terms, a repository of information. Looking back at the Olympics Web site, for example, all of the event results, medal standings, and athlete biographies that appear on the site are actually stored in a database someplace. Databases are not good at displaying information in an attractive format (such as a Web page), but they’re really good at keeping track of large quantities of related information.

A database server is a program that lets another program retrieve information stored in a database. Just like Apache and OmniHTTPD are Web servers that serve Web pages, programs such as MySQL and Oracle are database servers that serve databases.

A “database-driven Web site” is a Web site where all of the actual information is stored in a database, and the Web pages themselves are produced by server-side scripts that connect to a database server to fetch that information and “plug it into” the attractive Web page design that is then sent to your Web browser. Such sites can provide access to vast quantities of information with surprisingly little maintenance overhead, because if you make a change to the information stored in the database, all the Web pages on your site that display that information are automatically updated as a result.

Resources:

• Building a Database-Driven Web Site using PHP and MySQL on WebmasterBase

MySQL

A free database server, this program runs on a computer to provide access to and manage one or more databases. Just as browsers use HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol) to request and download Web pages, programmers can use SQL (Structured Query Language) to communicate with a MySQL server and request information stored in a database. Since it is free for most uses, MySQL is a very popular solution for creating databases for content-driven Web sites.

Resources:

• Building a Database-Driven Web Site using PHP and MySQL on WebmasterBase