Database Services

In a data driven website the underlying data is held in a database separate from the web pages. This database is then accessed through web pages which allow people to view and search the information and, if required, update and manage it.

By tapping into and interfacing with internal databases, your web site can become much more than an online brochure. TeraTech can help you create unique web applications by interfacing your website with your existing databases. This creates a whole new level of interaction and functionality. Web content becomes more dynamic, flexible and easier to manage, navigate and search. In this way, you will be able to achieve real time data processing, create user driven information and reduce your overall administrative costs.

Where’s That Bus?

As a result of our past work on WMATA's successful Trip Planner application, TeraTech is currently working on another major transit project. The client is a major transit Authority, and the ultimate result will be real-time bus data for its customers, available via web browser, cell phone or PDA. Two separate sources of internal bus routing and schedule data must be combined and converted into a proprietary XML format to be used by another application. It’s a huge batch process that runs only occasionally, when anything changes in the routes or schedules, and it must be 100% accurate and reliable. The client uploads nearly 300 MB of data, some in a database and the rest as flat text files, and our system performs complex data transformations including merging, validation, and interpretation. We load the data into a relational database, and then use complex queries to generate the XML. Although the processing is done in parts and combined at the end, the sheer size of the finished output file makes optimization of code and memory performance a critical factor. After performing this “magic” our automated system notifies the client that their XML data is ready to download and sent to the customer-facing application.

PowerPoint-to-go!

TeraTech recently got the chance to turn around a challenging project for a large governmental organization. A contractor had tried unsuccessfully for a year to automate a series of PowerPoint-generation routines based on extremely large, unwieldy sets of survey data. The survey data changes frequently, and it needs to be aggregated in various ways including state and national versions. By applying our experience from similar projects, TeraTech created the solution our client was looking for. Now, the client uses a simple web interface to upload a large flat text file of raw data, which our automated system parses and loads into a relational database, runs data transformations and calculates the needed statistics. Next, through a series of steps utilizing ColdFusion, XML, and Java, it generates full-color charts and graphs, combines them with text into a finished PowerPoint presentation, and delivers it minutes later by email to the client. The client was so happy with the result; we have now completed three more of these PowerPoint automations for them and looking forward to the fifth!