The main purpose of this package is to provide a flexible and easy-to-use database-to-webservice conversion mechanism. In layman terms, we want to provide an easy mean of connecting applications to remote databases using a web service protocol instead of a native database driver.
Current features include:
written in 100% PHP, runs on Windows, Linux and many variants of UNIX
use of ADODB as database backend enables connection to a great number of different databases (even LDAP!)
uses XML over HTTP as data transportation layer: can be deployed in different setups and will work across proxies, firewalls etc...
provides a SOAP inbterface as well as an XMLRPC one
uses standard web-service protocols with libraries available in many programming languages, allowing coders to write new clients for integration within existing platforms
includes a generic SQL-to-HTTP proxy that can be used to build two or three-tier application architectures eliminating the need for installation of database connectivity on clients
can be used to save money on database licensing costs
if properly coded, clients can become 100% database platform agnostic, i.e. you could switch databases with zero impact on clients and limited impact on the middle-tier
many, many times slower than accessing databases using native driver interfaces
does not take advantage of many particular programming features of advanced databases