[sammyboy]

Hi All,

A friend of mine wants to set up database where data can be uploaded and people will be provided with paid licenses to pull the data reports from it.

Giving you an example: Lets assume there is a database which has information about all the diff car manufacturers all across the world, car models, prices,sales reports etc.

Now if someone wants access to, lets say, all maruti 800's sold in india he will be given access only to that particular data and will not be able to access any other information through a front end.
He will purchase a license and charged Rs 100 for a year.

On the other hand if someone wants info about all Honda models in all countries he will have a separate license with that permission and will be charged accordingly.

Please suggest how to get this done.
Hosting and space would also be a requirement.

Can anyone suggest an IT firm you know of which can help us with this ?
Also if possible please also shed some light on what kind of charges can be associated with a database setup of this kind.

THanks for your help. Please feel free to let me know if you require any information which you might need to suggest a solution.

[sammyboy]

Bump , where are the IT wizards of the team. Help please?

[sk456]

What you need is a web application with authorized access to different reports that one could access based on his access level ( which could be defined as per payments made ). There would be also be a separate interface where data on different topics could be fed into the application database.
India has a zillion IT firms. Howver charges would depend on the total Man-hours required to build the application. You would need to contact any IT services firm to analyze your requirements ( which could be chargeable ). They would then give you a quote/estimate for the solutuon based on an inital analysis. On go ahead from you they would have a detailed analysis followed by design, development and testing. The application would then be release to you for a user acceptance testing . after your go ahead it would be deployed on a LIVE server.
Hope that helps !

[sammyboy]

THanks a lot sk456. It has helped us build a path to follow.
Was wondering if anyone of our friends here know of any firm that could do this. It will be helpful to get someone who is recommended by the team.

[bblost]

Ask him to check out on Virtual Private Database from Oracle.
VPD

[rmonie]

Another option is to detail out the specifications and use a site which is a freelance coders marketplace. The ones I have used are elance.com & getafreelancer.com A Google search on "freelance coders" should get you decent results. You will find a number of local companies as well on these & other sites.

[sammyboy]

Thanks bblost, unfortunately my friend is all finance n stuff n zero tech. I know a lil bit but am more of a proj mgmt kinda person so were looking for someone to build, host and manage the application and database.
Let me go thru the link and will get back to you with questions
@ rmonie - Good suggestion, have been working with guru, elance and getafreelancer for about a year n a half now but never struck me. Will check it out as well.

[rapideffect]

Check with ww.znetindia.com for the same. I believe they will provide you cost effective hosting, building and maintenance of your portal.

[bblost]

Sammy as you know a lil bit more
I am trying to explain VPD in simple terms.

Consider the following:
EMP
----------------------
eno sal
1 10000
2 20000
3 30000
4 15000
5 16000
6 10080
7 10700
8 15000
9 12000

Users
------------------------
Users Options
abc A1
xyz A2
lmn A1 and A2
opq A1 or A2

Pridicates
------------------------
Condition_name Conditions
A1 Eno < 10
A2 Eno > 5 and Eno < 8

Now when any user runs a query
select * from emp
Internally its executed as
select * from (select * from emp ) where (attach predicate)
here the sql will fire for
abc as
select * from (select * from emp ) where ()
xyz as
select * from (select * from emp ) where (Eno > 5 and Eno < 8)
lmn as
select * from (select * from emp ) where ((eno <10) and (Eno > 5 and Eno < 8))
and so on.

[sammyboy]

Thanks rapideffect. Will contact them.
@bblost - Makes sense to me Will be useful when I try explaining stuff to the people who will work on this . Thanks man.

[bblost]

Some points that came to my mind.
1. Identify the tables that need to be secured.
2. Setup tables may not even be exposed to an open UI.
3. Name all secured tables with a trailing _S.
4. Create views on all the Secured tables.
5. Application developers can only use the views.
6. A simple string search for _S will catch all violations.
7. Identify the columns that can be used to determine user access levels.
8. This way you can sell access rights based on multiple factors.

For Example: If your car table has information like
Body Type:Cubic Capacity:Manufacturer and so on.
You can set up access rights based on these colums.
i.e a user will buy access to cc 1000 to 1600.
or Manufacturer or Body Type and so on.

9. Your developers will need to create UI screens where these conditions can be entered.
10. Conditions can be either static text or dynamic sqls.
11. Default access behaviour needs to be taken care off.
12. Validate the code againts security issues.
13. No point putting in a fancy system but google showing all the results.
14. Enable and disable security context based on the UI being accessed.
15. These kind of programs can be time consuming. So validate every thing for performance.

Do ping back if you have any questions

[NetfreakBombay]

Consider "Build vs Buy" for this.

I think most off-the-shelf reporting solutions will do this for you. "Business Objects" is the king but will cost a lot.

Free product "Pentaho" will do the job here, unless you are planning to add advanced visualization/dashboards from day 1.

Showing data on the web and being able to select who can see what, is one of the common requirements for any data.

Sugar coated marketing name for such products is "Business Intelligence"

Pentaho Commercial Open Source Business Intelligence: Home
Business Intelligence from Business Objects

EDIT : Some marketing blurb for pantaho Pentaho Commercial Open Source Business Intelligence: Product Demos

[ajitkommini]

I work with an excellent application called Oracle APEX (Application Express) that is really good for stuff like this. You can create a very professional-looking database-driven application in a relatively short time, with minimal coding skills (basic PL/SQL, HTML etc.) Check it out at: Oracle Application Express

Oh and the best part? the application itself is free once you buy the database license!