On Fri, Feb 5, 2010 at 5:38 AM, Martin Hannigan <martin@theicelandguy.com> wrote:
Honestly? A spreadsheet will do it.
Let me translate that into plain English for you. He said that a "barebones database" will do it and he happens to use a simple one that he built himself. Clearly there are scaling issues with his technology choice, but other than that, his solution is probably the most common one you will find out there. Most ISPs use a straightforward database (usually a full-blown relational one) and build their own application around it. A company that I worked at 10 years ago built a system around a CRM tool called Vantive. At first glance, CRM tools are not the kind of thing you would normally choose for tracking circuits and physical plant. But since this CRM tool allowed customization with VBA, and since VBA allowed access to full-blown relational databases, we ended up with a very nice tool that not only tracked circuits, fibres, etc. but also allowed us to link it all to customers so if there was a specific fibre route cut, we could immediately get a list of contact names and numbers for all customers whose services were affected. My advice is to find out what in-house database skills you have available, and get them to build a simple records system using Oracle, PostreSQL, DB2, SQL Server or similar, and to make sure that they understand that the intent is to evolve it step by step into a full-blown system. This last is important so that they think about how to make a long-term design and make fewer mistakes that need to be fixed later. --Michael Dillon