Software - Open Source

InfoPoint is committed to open source and open standards. The core software that InfoPoint uses is MySQL, PHP, the Apache Web server all in a Unix environment.

Our sites are written in standard SQL and can work with any SQL database. MySQL is an open source database program that provide virtually all of the abilities of proprietary database programs like Oracle, Sybase or MSSQL for free. MSSQL only works on Windows, but MySQL works on both Windows and Unix. At InfoPoint we have it configured to do data replication, which means that there is a copy of the database on an extra server, both to increase performance and to make sure that we can keep our Web sites up even if one computer goes down. MySQL has fancy features like transactions, rollback and other sophisticated commands, and each month it improves. It has good performance and we have never had a single problem with it in the 4 years we have been using it.

Oracle is a great database, but its cost is not always justified. NASA recently switched from Oracle to MySQL and many other government agencies are likely to follow suit. Oracle is a great product, and we work with it as well, but for most cases it is overkill.

PHP is a "scripting language." This is a language where we can write programs that hook databases and other Unix programs to your Web site. It allows us to make decisions based on user preference or history.

We decided on PHP instead of Perl or ASP for a variety of reasons. First off, we rejected ASP because it is a proprietary Microsoft product. PHP works on Unix, Linux and Windows so our customers have a choice. We use Perl for some things, but not for our main Web site building. PHP was designed to build Web sites and Perl was created before the Web. We find we can work faster and with fewer errors using PHP. It is smaller and faster. It is easier to hook to external programs like Internet Telephoney. It is well integrated with XML and provides a huge number of functions for working with Web file types like PDF, gif, jpeg and so on.

According to the largest survey of Web sites on the Internet, the Apache Web server is used more often than all other Web servers combined. There are three times as many sites using Apache as Microsoft's IIS. It works on Unix and on Windows. It integrates well with PHP and MySQL. It is evolving and there is every reason to believe it will continue to be the best Web server available.

Everything is done on a Unix or Linux platform. Unix provides thousands of programs that are accessible by the Web site. Both the Apache web server and PHP allow us to interface to these programs. We can and do create additional programs in Java and C that the Web site can access.

In general, we create everything to be portable, which means that our customers can take our work and it will run in a different environment.