General Discussion

General DiscussionHow was this site created?

How was this site created? in General Discussion
Trenchtoaster

    I work for a fairly large company (35,000 employees) and we still use Excel databases to track performance. I wonder how the creators of this site are able to:

    Store and reflect such a large amount of data
    Enable people to review performance so quickly without long hold times
    Suggestions on things to learn to be able to do something like this in the future

    Tharuler

      You should probably hire some database engineer/software engineer to help you out if you're still using Excel :)

      The main reasons why everything is so smooth and fast:
      - Expensive hardware
      - Good programmers
      - A lot of time sptent maintaining/updating the site

      rambosalad

        "Excel database"

        I think I found the problem

        Red Alert

          have you heard of sql, perchance?

          Trenchtoaster

            Yep, was wondering if that is how it is done. I have MySQL and Zend installed. If learning that could help me throw together a web based database then that would be cool

            bum farto

              Best thing to do is to export and clean your data out of excel and into access which can then, as a database be utilized on web platforms and CMS Platforms for reporting.....excel is not what you are looking for :)

              Lagger

                still using excel O_o for real? the microsoft product? i loled
                just hire a database engineer. heck, even a student could create a database for you...

                This comment was edited
                BlackXargon

                  Lol @ MS Excel and Access users.. i'm in data warehousing industry and deal with terabytes of data and billions of records for telco companies and this website is nowhere near that.

                  twodil

                    @Lagger there is nothing wrong with Microsoft products (actually Sql Server DB or Visual Studio support of .NET technologies are quite decent)

                    OT a company with 35.000 people using text editor to store data ... you are like 30 years behind in the field where every 10 years is considered as a new era

                    This comment was edited
                    Dehlak

                      It isn't that weird that you are still using excel at your company, there are still a lot of high profile corporations that still use excel as their main "database". The transition to a scalable database system is often not worth the money if there is a system in place that works, for the same reason so many companies are still using Internet Explorer 6 as their browser. It's a very costly process ^^

                      Lemon

                        Excel is one of best database program back in the old days.. and its very hard to switch excel to other sql databases so they keep excel like %70 of old companys. About this site, most likely they spent a lot of money

                        Dave

                          Excel database. =="

                          Even my school teaches SQL bro.

                          Lemon

                            cuz its 2013 u silly :3 sql and erp got more popular after 2000 . i am sure their company is more old

                            Trenchtoaster

                              Company is from the 80s or so. We have an entire reporting sector but everything trickles up from Excel. We have a team in India that does out web based reporting for the company (automates reports, but again sends us that data through Excel). It's such a small team though - have to put in requests and wait a month or so before it is processed. Too bad, not enough investment in the right places.

                              So I guess learning SQL is the way to go if I was interested?

                              perk11

                                SQL is for programmers. Unless you're going to develop a new piece of software for your company, don't try to learn it. Excel is no good if you need something complicated and also available to more then 1 user simultaneously, that's for sure. Try and take a look at existing ERP-systems. Maybe one of them will suit your company's needs. And if not there is always an option to hire developers who will make a software of your own for the company.