Canberra
     Australia

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Pintado Development is small information service provider and Web application developer.  It has, since 2002, been providing an information service to Australian community choirs.  The service provides online information about sources of the musical scores that choirs need for their performances.  It is a development of the National Music Lending Scheme which the Canberra Choral Society had operated for some thirty or so years previously as a printed catalog that was circulated amongst subscribers.  The Canberra Choral Society now administers database content and subscriptions for the service.

The online service is delivered from Lotus Notes databases on a Windows 2000 Server platform.  The Notes databases are supported by an IBM DB2 Workgroup relational database, which ensures that data redundancies are correctly propagated in the non-relational Notes databases.  The use of the two database systems also facilitates the management of data integrity. 

At this time the information content is restricted to sources of scores available for hire from Australian choirs.  Thus, the service is of interest mainly to Australian choir librarians and musical directors.  Pintado Development has a concept for a broader range of information services that would increase both the level of subscription and visitation, thereby enhancing the opportunities for income generation.  A service such as this one is a consumer of costly resources.  It should become financially self sustaining in order to ensure its survival.

The systems currently employed by Pintado Development to provide the service do not, of themselves, have the capacity to support applications of the flexibility and interactivity that are required.  Pintado Development has made considerable progress in  harnessing the Java 2 Enterprise  (J2EE) platform to its purposes.  Since it employs Microsoft server platforms, it is now acquiring expertise in the .Net systems as well.

The service architecture envisaged will employ the .Net platform as the Web site host.  .Net will generate web pages from multiple in memory XML databases using its XSLT document transformation capabilities.  The in memory databases will have limited, managed lifetimes, be generated in response to requests for packages of information and will facilitate rapid browsing of relatively large parcels of data.  The .Net platform will use Web services to request the XML databases from a J2EE backend, which will query the DB2 Workgroup server.  .Net might temporarily store the more frequently used XML databases on disk using MS SQLServer.  And, of course, the range and interest of the information content will be enhanced.

Such is the challenge that Pintado Development has set itself.

Visit the service: ChoirMusicHire.Info