Design and development of data-intensive web sites: The Araneus approach

  • Authors:

  • Paolo Merialdo;Paolo Atzeni;Giansalvatore Mecca

  • Affiliations:

  • D.I.A.---Università Roma Tre, Rome, Italy;D.I.A.---Università Roma Tre, Rome, Italy;D.I.F.A.---Università della Basilicata, Potenza, Italy

  • Venue:
  • ACM Transactions on Internet Technology (TOIT)
  • Year:
  • 2003

Quantified Score

Hi-index 0.00

Visualization

Abstract

Data-intensive Web sites are large sites based on a back-end database, with a fairly complex hypertext structure. The paper develops two main contributions: (a) a specific design methodology for data-intensive Web sites, composed of a set of steps and design transformations that lead from a conceptual specification of the domain of interest to the actual implementation of the site; (b) a tool called Homer, conceived to support the site design and implementation process, by allowing the designer to move through the various steps of the methodology, and to automate the generation of the code needed to implement the actual site.Our approach to site design is based on a clear separation between several design activities, namely database design, hypertext design, and presentation design. All these activities are carried on by using high-level models, all subsumed by an extension of the nested relational model; the mappings between the models can be nicely expressed using an extended relational algebra for nested structures. Based on the design artifacts produced during the design process, and on their representation in the algebraic framework, Homer is able to generate all the code needed for the actual generation of the site, in a completely automatic way.