This page is about Transparen's capabilities with respect to databases. To learn about Transparen's capabilities with respect to general custom programming, click here.

Our experience with database programming includes:

• Designing and developing an N-Tier COM web service application that interfaces with MS SQL Server for a government client
• Creating an e-commerce site with MySQL database back-end for a financial services client
• Database extraction from a large DB2 mainframe for data analysis
• Migrating databases from one application to another
• Systems integration between databases

Transparen Corporation provides database data recovery services as well, such as recovering after system tables have been damaged after a hard drive crash or near crash experience.  Databases that we can recover from include:

• MS Exchange
• MS SQL Server
• MySQL
• Postgresql
• DB2
• MaxDB
• Oracle
• Access
• Outlook's email database

Most modern programming involves some sort of interaction with a database, even if the database is as simple as plain text files in a directory structure (yes, even that can be considered a database!).  For instance, companies often require the following types of database-enabled applications:

• Client database - for maintaining a unique identity for people who do business with the company.
• Transaction database - for keeping track of what transactions have been initiated or completed
• Subscription database - for allowing current subscribers to have access to certain benefits
• Support ticket database - this allows companies to see what kinds of issues come up more frequently, and allows technicians to share their knowledge

Transparen offers support for Open Source software, and the following two databases are populate Open Source databases:

• MySQL
• Postgresql

The main advantages/tradeoffs are that MySQL is faster for development, but Postgresql contains more enterprise features such as ACID compliant transactions, the ability to write procedures, the ability to have foreign keys, etc.

Other Open Source databases include:

• Firebird (not to be confused with FireFox, the web browser)
• Ingres