Design and Implementation of a Data Driven Application Using ColdFusion

-- A case study of the Mammoth Cave National Park and WKU joint project

Western Kentucky University

Jue Wang

                                                                                            

Introduction of the Project

Mammoth Cave National Park contains the world’s longest known cave system and is the most heavily researched and best understood cave system in the world. Each year the park receives numerous requests by researchers and students for resources of the Mammoth Cave system and its related regional karst landscape. In order to provide access to this material, Mammoth Cave National Park Staff and Western Kentucky University Libraries initiated a joint project. They began by reviewing each institution’s holdings related to Mammoth Cave National Park, cataloguing identified materials, and developing a joint Mammoth Cave Web site hosted by Western Kentucky University. At the beginning of this project, the team kept user flexibility and searchability in mind and pursued a data-driven dynamic site instead of a content-driven static site.

Why Create a Data Driven Site

• Maintenance of a content-driven static Web site can be very tedious

• Provide customized information and user interactive capability

• Demand for a searchable site and frequently updated contents

What You Need to Create a Static Website

• Traditional static websites are inexpensive to run and load quickly for users

• Need a computer with a Web server software such Apache or Internet Information Services

• Simple HTML code saved on Web server

This is How a Simple Static Website Works

What You Need to Create a Data Driven Site – Hardware Requirements

• Intel-based systems, such as Windows and many Unix/Linux systems

• Hardware with 256 MB of RAM is recommended

• Disk space depends on the size of the software and the space needed to save the data

What You need to Create a Data Driven Site – Software Requirements

• A Web server (such as Apache or Internet Information Services, same as static site)

• A Web application server (such as ColdFusion MX, Oracle application server …)

• A database server (a database management system, such as MySQL, Oracle database, MS SQL server …)

What You need to Create a Data Driven Site – Programming Languages

• ColdFusion Markup Language (CFML) : an easy-to-learn tag-based scripting language that embedded inside HTML code

• JavaScript: cross-platform, object-oriented scripting language that allows you to create dynamic web pages

• Structured Query Language (SQL): the language used to interact with Oracle, Microsoft SQL or MySQL. SQL is the standard language for relational database management systems

This is How a Dynamic Website Works

A Screen Shot of ColdFusion Admin Model

A Screen Shot of MySQL Admin Model

A Screen Shot of MySQL Control Center – Database Tables

A Screen Shot of MySQL Control Center – Table Details

A Screen Shot of Mammoth Cave Project -- Search Page

A Screen Shot of Mammoth Cave Project -- Result Page

Conclusion

The concept of a data driven Web site is not hard to understand, but fully integrating new technology into the design and implementation is a challenge. ColdFusion is a reliable and scalable development platform and is powerful enough to create Web-based application. The dynamic Web site powered by ColdFusion will deliver information in a more accurate and timely manner and the site itself will be far easier to manage and maintain.

Thanks!