For large ecommerce applications, huge amount of data are stored in databases, most likely relational databases managed by Relational Database Management Systems
(RDBMS) or database servers. Ecommerce application development always involves database development.
Database Development Tasks
- Schema Design is the first step of database development. Identification of
logical relationship between business entities, captured in a Entity-Relationship
Diagram (RE Diagram), is called logical design. Mapping of logical entity-relation to
a specific database is called physical design. Creation of database tables is the
implementation of the physical design.
- Views are used to present data to applications. A view acts like a virtual table usually retrieving data from multiple tables dynamically.
- Stored Procedures and Functions are used to hide implementation details of
data manipulation on database sever side with superior performance.
- Indexing improves the performance of data retrieval. The idea is to trade disk space for the speed.
- Oracle database server has been the choice for backing large-scale
applications for many large corporations and government entities. Oracle is robust and powerful but not cheap.
- MS SQLServer is Microsoft's database server to compete with Oracle's
- MySQL is an open-source and low cost database server good and powerful enough
for most of applications. The current version of MySQL doesn't support views.
Component Based Application Development
Web Application Development Methodologies
Web Application Development - Programming Languages
Online Tax Calculation
Application Development and Documentation Processes