• tommyleo - Wednesday, October 25, 2017 10:08 AM

    Dear Lynn,

    I truly appreciate your (or anyone else's) time and expertise. and I am sorry if I ask a lot. The truth is that I realized early on what you later commented: "There is so much you need to consider" but I was hoping to learn here on the forum... please do not feel uncomfortable to tell me, flat out: "no way that a forum can teach you how to evaluate and decide which is the best DB for your needs"... I was kind of expecting such a reply. Point is that I like to learn and solve my own problems but, on the other hand, I am also practical so I know when to seek advice.

    I attach an image of the mySQL costs.

    Unfortunately I still do not understand structured. Do you mean that data that has categories or slots or record is "structured" and data that is files (pdf, docx, xls, jpg, etc) is not structured? If I understood correctly, then we will need both structured and unstructured records. And, more importantly, queries must be able to find a word inside a contract that may be stored under a more general record of a transaction.

    I will check our GoToMeeting. Yes, I know that my second requirement is not DB related but I was hoping that a DB user might have come across the same necessity in other firms.

    Lynn, I appreciated you sharing your free time and expertise with me. If you can help further, thank you, if not I still appreciate and thank you all the same.

    Tommaso

    First, you may have forgotten to upload the image you mention, but not worried.
    I understand the desire to solve your own problems, I am the same way.  What I have had to learn is when to start asking for help.  With the task you have presented here, the sooner you get outside help, the sooner you can move forward.

    Structured data, simply look at an Invoice as an example.  There are elements that are common across them.  You have a Customer Address and possibly a Billing Address.  There are common elements to these, a street address or PO Box, a city name, a state or province, a country, a zip code or postal code (and maybe not if you look at some countries).  Looking at the line items, you again can see a structure for the data.

    Unstructured data, yes, things like Word documents and PDF files.  These can be searched using full text search software.  SQL Server has full text capabilities and can search documents with the appropriate filters installed.

    We have used Adobe Connect, WebEx, and even Google Hangouts to support collaboration between remote sites.  While in Afghanistan Google Hangouts was used to link teams together in Afghanistan to teams in Florida, Virginia, and Colorado while working resolve various technical issues we encountered.

    Overall, what you are trying to accomplish actually sounds quite intriguing as well as challenging.  Hopefully you aren't doing this all alone have at least some help from others in your organization.  This is really a lot for one person to tackle by themselves.  When I have more time I would love to add more to this conversation.