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real estate software / uk database design | property management software
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Property Databases
Technical Considerations
Regardless of what type of property database you
select, there are a number of technical considerations which you
may want to consider:
- Database size and users. Your database should
be able to handle a far higher number of records and number of
users than you currently have. Both in case of potential expansion
on your behalf and in general as it is worth avoiding the use
of a system which you are pushing to its very limits.
- Industry standards. Microsoft Windows is still
the industry standard. If you want to diverge from that, make
sure you are comfortable with doing so, you can get hardware support
and enough software applications. Windows can also help 'future-proof'
any database development and most people are familiar with its
interface
- Relational databases. This means that you
only need to update a data item in one place for the system to
update other 'linked' records. (For example, if someone changes
their surname, you should only have to edit that information once
and the system should update any other instances of the name automatically).
- Record locking. Ensure that record locking
does not mean that two users cannot do two different tasks at
the same time on the same record (e.g. run a report when another
user is updating a record).
- Internet/Web enabled.
- Security
- Customisation?
- Inclusion of PAF (Postcode Address File)?
- A report writer for ad-hoc/specific reports
- The ability to query ('ask a question' of)
the database on any item of recorded data
- BACS/EFTs?
- Export / Import facilities?
Client/Server
It is probably also worthwhile explaining very
briefly what client/server technology means and what its benefits
are:
With client/server technology, the workload is
split between the PCs (the client) and one or more larger computers
(the server) on a network.
The data is still stored on the server(s) and
requests are sent from the client to the server but, whereas in
a traditional network environment all the processing is then done
on the client, in a client/server set-up the processing is split
between the client and the server.
This produces a number of benefits:
- Performance. With correctly specified hardware,
speed should improve, sometimes dramatically so.
- Scalability. If a database is based on client/server
technology then there should be no significant degradation of
performance regardless of the size of the database or the number
of users.
- Robustness and data integrity. It includes
functions which protect your data from accidental damage.
- The main issue with implementing a client/server
implementation is that the server needs to be a very powerful
machine with plenty of memory, and hence more expensive. Each
application will require its own specifications.
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