VDM Deng, Y: Using Web Services for Customised Data Entry

Scientific databases often need to be accessed from a variety of different applications. There are usually many ways to retrieve and analyse data already in a database. However, it can be more difficult to load data from different sources and in a variety of formats (e.g. spreadsheets, other databases, statistical packages). This can cause users to waste a lot of time extracting, reformatting and re-entering data. This book focuses on developing a generic, platform independent way to simplify the loading of databases. The approach uses Web services as middleware to supply essential data management functionality such as inserting, updating, deleting and retrieval of data. This functionality allows developers to easily customise data entry applications for local user requirements, data sources and data formats (e.g. using VBA for Excel or J2ME for mobile applications). If you need to provide access to a shared database from multiple customised client applications, this book will be of interest to you.