Abstract
The chapter presents a real case study of the integration of relational and NoSQL databases. The example of a real project related to vehicle registration, particularly to testing vehicles for compliance with environmental standards, explains how those two worlds can be integrated. Oracle database is used as a relational database, while MongoDB is used as NoSQL database. The chapter sustains that the COMN notation can be successfully used in the process of modeling both relational and nonrelational data. All three ways of integration of relational and NoSQL databases are tested. The native solution was tested by using of native drivers for communication with Oracle and MongoDB databases. The hybrid solution used a Unity product. The reducing-to-one option, in this case, SQL, was tested on Oracle database. The capabilities of Oracle 12c database to work both with relational and nonrelational data by using SQL were tested.
TopCase Study: Vehicle Registration
Testing vehicles for compliance with environmental standards is a usual procedure within the vehicle registration process in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Until 1 January 2017, this part of vehicle inspection was not adjusted with international standards. However, since the beginning of 2017 new rules and tests have been introduced in order to harmonize the so-called vehicle environmental tests with new legal regulations, in accordance with international standards in this field. The main purpose of the eco-testing procedure is to create preconditions on the car market to make a selection of cars that can operate in road traffic, based on specified environmental standards. One of the tasks in the process of adjusting the existing environmental tests with international, primarily European, standards was to develop the appropriate software (i.e., EcoTest software). At the beginning, the client of the software design project defined specific guidelines for its development. Some of these guidelines were used in this case study:
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EcoTest is separate software that will record all data of an environmental testing procedure.
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EcoTest needs to be designed in Web technology with development of a data model on appropriate databases, assuming that the software will use cloud-based infrastructure.
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The software should be flexible and provide a simple extension of the designed data model with structured and unstructured data.
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The software must communicate with other programs which are used in the overall vehicle registrations process, where data on the financial component of the process and final result of testing are very important.
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Based on the vehicle type, age, engine type and maximum speed, the software determines whether a vehicle needs to undergo the eco-test at all.
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The software must support communication with all measuring devices which are certified for vehicle eco-testing procedures.
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Testing of measurement results and provision of the environmental testing assessment should be carried out based on the stored limit values which the producer of the tested car provides.
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If the test produces negative results, the software should generate a recommendation to the vehicle owner to remedy these defects.
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EcoTest needs to provide the functionality of fast and simple database search by all elements of the data model and fast availability of all multimedia records related to the vehicle testing procedure.