Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Very few have the luxury of basing a technology decision purely on
objective facts. Firstly, it takes a long time to collect these facts about the
possible options (and in some cases the objective truth can only be found
after coding the application in several technologies and comparing the
results, and this is very rarely done). Secondly, it is a fact that a technology
decision is always taken in a certain context or from a certain point of
view, making these kinds of decisions inherently biased. Finally, according
to research described in the topic Sway [12] we all, in general, overrate
our rationality in our decision making.
Therefore, any decision is likely to be based on a combination of
objective facts, current environment, current skill sets in the team, what
the infrastructure strategy/policy allows and whether we like it or not;
our gut feeling! Despite our best efforts and intentions, in the end the
right choice becomes clear only after a couple of years, when it is apparent
which technologies are still around, have been adopted by a signifi cant
number of groups and are still in active development.
With the above decision limitations in mind, the following are the
criteria used when deciding on technology for the future global Lundbeck
research system.
Multi-tier architecture - an architecture where the client, running on
local PCs, is separated from the application server, which is separated
from the database server. In our case, the servers should be located
only at Lundbeck HQ in Denmark, keeping the hardware setup as
simple and maintainable as possible.
Web-based UI - a web-based solution that would be easy to deploy on
all the different kinds of PCs and languages used around the world. A
lightweight web client should still be fast enough from any location
with the servers placed in Denmark.
Open source - open source tools give us the confi dence that we are
likely always to fi nd a solution to the problems we encounter, either by
adding a plug-in if one is available or by developing what is needed
in-house.
Oracle - as the existing data are stored in a relational database
based on Oracle, we need a technology with support for this type of
database.
￿ ￿ ￿ ￿ ￿
In addition, there are also more subjective, but no less important, criteria
to consider.
Fast to develop - a web framework that is fast to learn/get started with
and fast when developing, relative to other technology choices.
 
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