Designing a good database system can be quite difficult; coming into an existing system and having to learn its structure can be even more difficult. Database designers have diagrams to help ease a developer into the structure of an existing system. Those diagrams have either not enough system detail, such as an Entity Relationship Diagram (ERD), or too much system detail, such as a Referential Integrity diagram. We developed a visualization of the structure of a database that bridges the gap between these two types of diagrams by giving the details new developers need but without so much as to overwhelm them. Read the rest of this entry »

A key aspect of the Hydro4GE application can be found in the in the “4GE” component of its name; it is a Fourth Generation Environment. But just what does that mean? People have asked; I’ve heard of code generators, I’ve heard of Fourth Generation Languages, where does Hydro4GE fit relative to other types of systems?

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The business needs served by a database may change often during its lifetime. On such occasions, it becomes necessary to modify the structure of the database in order to adapt it to its new requirements. This is called database schema evolution. Effective support for schema evolution is challenging because changes to schema must be propagated to instance data (i.e., data already populating the database), views, and applications that access the database. Making such changes manually is tedious and error-prone; hence, in the ideal, it would be done with minimal human intervention.

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The core Hydro4GE logic has been used to build client database applications ranging from traditional information capture solutions to highly specialized/complex applications.

Recent examples of traditional information capture, management and reporting solutions include:

• Centralized Inventory Management Database.
• Juror Selection Database.
• Tax Claim Information Database.
• Secure Work Order Portal for a national retail chain.
• Secure Employee Benefits Enrollment Portal.
• Customer Information System for a Warranty Management Company.

Recent examples of more complex solutions with “special needs”:

• Job Tracking System, including time and billing activities for a Service Company.
• Retired Employee Payroll Management Database.
• Utility/Energy Tracking and Management System (multiple providers, clients and real estate types).
• Data repository to consolidate and standardize sensitive health care information from multiple legacy applications in order to feed an Electronic Medical Records application.

Representative metrics associated with above:

• The Tax Claim Database offers inquiry and review access to 900,000 real estate tax records.
• The Secure Work Order Portal provides centralized information access to a nationwide work force of project managers and service technicians responsible for 700+ installations.
• The Job Tracking System maintains over 3,700 active and complete jobs detailing specific work efforts, time commitments and billing information.
• The Retired Employee Payroll System houses key pension day for over 2,200 employees.
• The Utility/Energy Tracking System manages over 4,400 meters and associated statistics.

“Wow. Am I done?” As a rookie member of the development team, I got my first under-the-hood look at the engine that drives Hydro4GE. I recently was able to create my own application using the engine directly. The target system was a domain information tracker. It was amazing how fast the turnaround time for this project was. Five hours. A complete system built to specification in five hours. The entire process lets you focus on getting the system the way you want it. That’s all you need to create a system using the Hydro4GE engine. The hardest part of developing this system at the engine level was the syntax… and that isn’t difficult at all.

Using the core technologies of Hydro4GE I was able to develop my system in five hours. When I get a chance to use the entire Hydro4GE arsenal, I suspect I will be able to cut an additional hour or two off development, from start to finish. The productivity gains using the engine directly are phenomenal and promise to be even more so when the Hydro4GE development environment is used when I do not have to interact with the underlying engine at a programming level. Complete systems. Done the right way. In five hours. Did I mention those five hours included creating the data model in addition to keying that model into the engine? Now that’s powerful.