Help me choose a technology please ??

Question

Hi, I am a MSc (Software Development) student from University of Huddersfield, UK. I have to submit a final year project proposal by the end of July.
My real client is a pharmaceutical company with many offices in many cities. They maintain a central database in one city. The need is to develop a means of accessing this database via a Java technology over the Internet as well as Intranet. The use of applets and web pages is discouraged by the non-technical company advisors. I wonder what can be the solution ?? Please guide me in the right direction and kindly point a right Java technology to be used in a Java Application for this need.
The relevant detail is:
1). Back end Database is in ORACLE.
2). Front END is supposed to be an Internet + Intranet enabled Application.
3). The choice of technologies to be considered:
RMI ??? (may be a rediculous question)
EJ Beans ??
Servelets ??
What should I think of ?? Please help me out as the time to decide is slipping out of my hands.
Regards,
Shahzad.

Answer 1

Hi,
First (non-technical people - like overpaid business managers) don't usually have a clue what they are talking about.
So, first, you need to make a case fro using simple well-known technology eg a tomcat server and the new buzz-word is SOAP (well it's not that new, but then the internet is getting old too).
Three web sites in 1996 (I quote Bill Clinton in the Dimbly lectures), maybe it was four!
On to SOAP, do a google/msn search on the subject.
It is a way of running a thin client/ server operation, passing all data as text or maybe xml (another buzzword?) through good old html.
You can therefore bypass firewalls with any data sent, there is not a need for expensive pcs (front-end users machines). The server does all the processing and returns a response as either a text response, an xml response, or just maybe a href link to a resource.
Just some ideas to think about.
Hope this helps
best
kev