| Positioning
GDS can also handle applications created with other technologies and
approaches. Before a new application is created, various existing
approaches and technologies have to be evaluated.
Some common questions are:
GDS provides the technology to address these issues. data2c will assist its customers to evaluate the advantages and best use of GDS. The section below should give some additional insight on how GDS differs from common technology, and interacts with it. If you still want the answer to a specific question, please feel free to send your question to info@data2c.com. Frequently Updated HTML Pages HTML pages certainly provide the latest data, and the data is typically consolidated and aggregated by a content management system (CMS). Some portals even allow the personalization of user-specific interest areas. But in many cases, the user winds up with more information than he or she really needs. Another problem with HTML pages is that they are read only, and are not linked or referenced into another application like MS Excel so the most current value is always indicated. GDS solves this problem: a CMS could create an HTML page by integrating links to GDS data cells – hence, the values displayed in the HTML page can be referenced with real-time data. Databases Databases are created for specific purposes and are extremely powerful. GDS focuses on easy publishing of live data that even end-users can administer. Typically, it is more common to read than to write data. Data cells can be created and accessed on the fly from anywhere as long as an IP connection is available. It is simple using MS Explorer, and doesn't require any knowledge about a database structure or SQL. Through GDS, user management data can only be accessed by authorized applications or users. Required tables and fields in a database can be easily mirrored on GDS, based on triggers or a specific schedule. If the value in a data cell changes, GDS keeps track of the changes and stores the old values with a time stamp. Old values can easily be viewed. RSS Feeds RSS feeds have recently become very popular for displaying the latest topics of interest. Yet RSS feeds are limited in their layout. Creating an attractive HTML page with the latest information of interest requires sophistication on the part of the user. Also, this application is almost exclusively limited to the desktop. Today’s mobile phone technology is still not quite capable of displaying these pages properly. Personal View Builder addresses this problem by creating a “view” that can be displayed everywhere – from the closest desktop workstation to the most remote mobile phone location. Personal View Builder allows access to data cells on the GDS, where data from multiple sources can be combined into a single screen. Users can access only the information they want, using a view. Nothing more, nothing less. XML XML is intended to structure and transport data within a single document. Typically, an XML file contains a complete – and complex – data structure. But XML is useless if only some data, or limited information, can be extracted from the XML file. Another hurdle: How to send an enormous XML file to a mobile device with only a limited IP connection. GDS solves this problem because it easily mirrors XML documents. All data can be published in data cells. Other applications refer to this cell, and receive nothing but this information – which is extremely useful for mobile devices with limited IP access. |
