Google Script: Enterprise Application Essentials

Chapter 7. Collecting Data

It was a fine mess they had gotten themselves into. Scattered across the country, databases in various states of update and version, but not one location knew what the other was doing or if they could count on the “main hub” to be accurate with data that was less than a year out of date. That’s when they called you.

Certainly you are the expert they placed all their hope on who could bring the worn and tired infrastructure back from the grave. As you gaze into the endless abyss filled with the rot and decay from a thousand rickshaw contractors all with dreams of a quick buck for adding another band aid to the hemorrhaging artery, you realize that those days of the local copy are over and you will be the one to usher in a new era.

The Installed App Has Died

You can only wish that your coworkers saw you as a hero saving them from all the problems they are likely to inflict on themselves, but the truth is they will likely never know what goes into making a database work or the hardship of keeping it running. Fortunately, times are changing and the days of building a frontend, installing it, maintaining it, and trying to keep everyone connected are rapidly coming to an end. The internal network has been replaced by the Internet and cellular networks extend connections far beyond the reach of copper.

Today’s databases are hosted in massive data centers that never fail to serve requests and cost almost nothing for the storage. Frontend “installed” applications have ...