Database for web...

[wizzz]

I am doing a web project for an educational institution.
The web site needs a database to manage all the research papers and for a search engine.
However, installing a database (such as Oracle) is not allowed by the college network administrator's
office because of security issues.
BTW, the server is UNIX based.

Now, the client who employed me wants to have a database but I cannot install any commercial database.
I'm thinking what on earth am I suppose to be doing?

I seriously have no clue on what to do and she wants the whole thing finished in 8 weeks.
Somebody please point me to the right direction. How am I suppose to tackle this problem?

 

[Nothinman]

You could use libdbm or just a flat text file, CSV maybe, and after they see how poorly it performs they may reconsider.

 

[CTho9305]

flat text files on a ramdrive

 

[wizzz]

The main thing the client wants is a way to easily manage research papers that have been published.
Say there are 200 papers that needs to be put up on the site, linking each paper to a pdf file.
The papers will be listed by years.
And everytime a new paper comes up, the client should be able to easily update the page.

Could you explain in detail how I could go about doing this?

BTW, the college will never reconsider about installing any software on the server...

 

[owensdj]

wizzz, would they let you run a database server on another computer? Maybe you can convince them to let you put a DBMS like MySQL on another computer. The web server can access the database thru MySQL over the local network. For security, you would configure MySQL to only accept connections from the web server. It wouldn't take a high-end machine to run that MySQL server, unless you had a huge amount of activity on the web site. Maybe they would let you buy one. Sounds like a $1200 or less Linux box would be all you'd need.

If they don't let you put a database server anywhere, they are just asking you to do the impossible.

 

[lordex]

You might also consider storing the paper info in an XML file(or a set of them, depends). Most of the front end langauges
(jsp/asp/perl/etc.) support XML parsing. It'd also be easier for your client to update an XML file than some database tables.



<< The main thing the client wants is a way to easily manage research papers that have been published.
Say there are 200 papers that needs to be put up on the site, linking each paper to a pdf file.
The papers will be listed by years.
And everytime a new paper comes up, the client should be able to easily update the page.

Could you explain in detail how I could go about doing this?

BTW, the college will never reconsider about installing any software on the server... >>

 

[RemyCanad]

I agree with the MySQL:idea.
I think someone has already mentioned it but you only real choice after this is running a text file database.