Online Databases

Unit IV

Introduction-(Wiki)
An online database is a database accessible from a network, including from the Internet. It differs from a local database, held in an individual computer or its attached storage, such as a CD. For the system or software designed to manage a database, see Database management systems (DBMS) For information on the structure of a database itself, see Database For information on the programs for searching a database, see Search engines

Definition of online Databases

A collection of data presented in a searchable, online format. Information is reviewed and published therefore, trustworthy. Often provides publications that are 10, 20, 30 or more years old.
These databases are not free. The library subscribes to these databases for a fee and then provides access to them for our patrons. These databases contain information such as newspaper, magazine, and encyclopedia articles. The materials come from publishers, so they have been checked for accuracy and reliability. Some publishers are no longer providing information in a printed format. The only way to get the information now, which was previously supplied in print, is through an online database. Several of the databases come from print sources that publishers are now also selling in an online format. The databases do not always have every article from the magazines or newspapers that they cover, and they do not include advertisements. Some of them only provide an abstract, or short paragraph, from the article instead of the full-text. In this case, you would have to go to the print source to

Accessing Online Databases

Uses an Internet Browser to navigate (but NOT considered a website!) Usually only accessible to subscribers with a username and password.
Libraries usually subscribe to several and provide free access to patrons!

Types of Online Databases

Currently, there are several database products designed specifically as hosted databases delivered as Software as a Service products. These differ from typical traditional databases such as Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, Sybase, etc. Some of the differences are: These online databases are delivered primarily via a web browser They are often purchased by a monthly subscription

They embed common collaboration features such as sharing, email notifications, etc.
For information on the contents of specific types of database, see

Bibliographic databases

Customer relationship management To learn about generic online databases that can be used by any software

List of Databases Links

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_academic_databases_a nd_search_engines http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_online_databases http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_search_engines

Bibliographic Database
A bibliographic database is a database of bibliographic records, an organized digital collection of references to published literature, including journal and newspaper articles, conference proceedings, reports, government and legal publications, patents, books, etc. In contrast to library catalogue entries, a large proportion of the bibliographic records in bibliographic databases describe analytics (articles, conference papers, etc.) rather than complete monographs, and they generally contain very rich subject descriptions in the form of keywords, subject classification terms, or abstracts.

Bibliographic Index
A bibliographic index is a bibliography, an aid to search the literature of, for example, an academic field or discipline (example: Philosopher's Index), to works of a specific literary form (Biography Index) or published in a specific format (Newspaper Abstracts), or to the analyzed contents of a serial publication (New York Times Index).

Indexes of this kind are issued in print periodical form (issued in monthly or quarterly paperback supplements, cumulated annually) or online (in which case they are called bibliographic databases).

Citations are usually listed by author and subject in separate sections, or in a single alphabetical sequence under a system of authorized headings collectively known as controlled vocabulary, developed over time by the indexing service

Citation Index and Impact Factor

A citation index is a kind of bibliographic database, an index of citations between publications, allowing the user to easily establish which later documents cite which earlier documents. The first citation indices were legal citators such as Shepard's Citations (1873). In 1960, Eugene Garfield's Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) introduced the first citation index for papers published in academic journals, first the Science Citation Index (SCI), and later the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) and the Arts and Humanities Citation Index (AHCI).

The first automated citation indexing was done by CiteSeer in 1997. Other sources for such data include Google Scholar.

Major citation indexing services

There are two general-purpose academic citation indexes: ISI (now part of Thomson Scientific) publishes the ISI citation indexes in print and compact disc. They are now generally accessed through the Web under the name Web of Science, which is in turn part of the group of databases in the Web of Knowledge. Elsevier publishes Scopus, available online only, which similarly combines subject searching with citation browsing and tracking in the sciences and social sciences. Each of these offer an index of citations between publications and a mechanism to establish which documents cite which other documents. They differ widely in cost: the ISI databases and Scopus are available by subscription (generally to libraries); CiteSeer and Google Scholar are freely available online.

Customer Relationship Management

Customer relationship management (CRM) is a widely implemented strategy for managing a companys interactions with customers, clients and sales prospects. It involves using technology to organize, automate, and synchronize business processesprincipally sales activities, but also those for marketing, customer service, and technical support.

The overall goals are to find, attract, and win new clients, nurture and retain those the company already has, entice former clients back into the fold, and reduce the costs of marketing and client service.

Customer relationship management describes a company-wide business strategy including customer-interface departments as well as other departments.Measuring and valuing customer relationships is critical to implementing this strategy.

Benefits of Customer Relationship Management

A Customer Relationship Management system may be chosen because it is thought to provide the following advantages: Quality and efficiency Decrease in overall costs Decision support Enterprise ability Customer Attentions Increase profitability.

Challenges Poor Usability, Fragmentation, Business Reputation

Cloud Databases
A cloud database is a database that typically runs on a cloud computing platform, such as Amazon EC2, GoGrid and Rackspace. There are two common deployment models: users can run databases on the cloud independently, using a virtual machine image, or they can purchase access to a database service, maintained by a cloud database provider. Of the databases available on the cloud, some are SQL-based and some use a NoSQL data model.

Deployment model
There are two primary methods to run a database on the cloud: Virtual machine Image - cloud platforms allow users to purchase virtual machine instances for a limited time. It is possible to run a database on these virtual machines. Users can either upload their own machine image with a database installed on it, or use ready-made machine images that already include an optimized installation of a database. For example, Oracle provides a ready-made machine image with an installation of Oracle Database 11g Enterprise Edition on Amazon EC2. Database as a service - some cloud platforms offer options for using a database as a service, without physically launching a virtual machine instance for the database. In this configuration, application owners do not have to install and maintain the database on their own. Instead, the database service provider takes responsibility for installing and maintaining the database, and application owners pay according to their usage. For example, Amazon Web Services provides two database services as part of its cloud offering, SimpleDB which is a NoSQL key-value store, and Amazon Relational Database Service which is an SQL-based database service with a MySQL interface.

A third option is managed database hosting on the cloud, where the database is not offered as a service, but the cloud provider hosts the database and manages it on the application owner's behalf. For example, cloud provider Rackspace offers managed hosting for MySQL databases.

Data model

It is also important to differentiate between cloud databases which are relational as opposed to non-relational or NoSQL: SQL database, such as Oracle Database, Microsoft SQL Server and MySQL, are one type of database which can be run on the cloud (either as a Virtual Machine Image or as a service, depending on the vendor). SQL databases are difficult to scale, meaning they are not natively suited to a cloud environment, although cloud database services based on SQL are attempting to address this challenge. NoSQL databases, such as Apache Cassandra, CouchDB and MongoDB, are another type of database which can run on the cloud. NoSQL databases are built to service heavy read/write loads and are able scale up and down easily,and therefore they are more natively suited to running on the cloud. However, most contemporary applications are built around an SQL data model, so working with NoSQL databases often requires a complete rewrite of application code.

Cloud Databases
http://longjump.com/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salesforce.com