Architectural design example

[Shazza]

Need to build a report system. Currently have a legacy system with different inventories such as flat files, spreadsheets and databases, in several countries.. Need to design appropriate information system architecture to support this system.

No current international standard for structure or content.

Need to produce this data on an annual basis. Would it be better to use Centralised, client/server, peer-to-peer, distributed. architecture?????

Any help, greatly appreciated....

[Louis Manfredi]

Hi Shazza:

Report systems are not my gig, but I can guess that you need to ask yourself the same questions I ask myself when setting up storage for a data acquisition system:

Who needs the data? What data do they need? What questions are they trying to answer with the data?

In what form do they need the data? Is a table of numbers enough? A simple plot? Does the user be able to manipulate the data? Should the data be manipulated and reduced before it is stored? If so, should it also be saved in its raw form?

How big is the data set? Does the data always arrive in the same format? If not, are the formats similar enough that they can be converted to a uniform format? In what ways (chronological, geographic, topical, etc.) does it need to be indexed or cross-referenced?

How widely available should the data be? What are the consequences if someone unauthorized gains access to the data? What are the consequences if the data is accidentally or maliciously destroyed or altered? What is the likelihood that someone will try?

How often and how quickly must the data be accessed? Frequently, quickly and repetitively? Or rarely and without urgency?

And there must be other questions I'm missing... :question:

After I've done that I can start to answer my questions about what the data storage format should look like, what medium the data is stored on, whether I can use a storage format similar to one I've used before for a similar need-- Or whether, just perhaps, I'm so lucky that I can use one of the pre-defined storage formats of LabView.

I'm not at all sure I-- or anyone else on this forum -- will be able to help you if you answer these questions, but even if you need to design the system completely on your own, you'll be ahead of the game once you give some critical thought to what the reporting system will be used for. While there may not be international standards for your report system, perhaps there's somewhat widely used format for storing similar information.

Hope I have been at least of a enough help to justify the time it took to read my rather wordy response.

Best Regards, Louis