When building a system for a client, we try to identify the client's need, and use the right tool for the job. For reasonably simple online databases, where we aim to do an out-of-the-box implementation with more or less no customisation, we usually recommend the Zenario content management system, with its useful Datasets feature for setting up online databases.

Setting up the data management area within the website is very quick, after which we declare the fields that are needed to model the data. Once launched, Zenario provides a data management area inside its Organizer back-office system.

This allows the customer administrators to create data records via the web browser, edit, and delete them. There are helpful search mechanisms and different ways of listing the data. 

It is easy to add images to data records, and if need be to relate a record with a full HTML page of description.

For bulk data work, there is an Import function to pull in data from a CSV or Excel file, and there is an Export function too. These are handy when there is a large amount of data to pull in, or sharing the data with a colleague.

On the visitor front end of the website, there may be a number of interfaces, depending on the nature of the data. There may be a search interface (often this is done with Ajax-type interactions), or there may be a simple list of data records, paginated or filtered by some category.

Scaling up ought not be painful. If your site or its database are slow to use, something is wrong!

A good database should be capable of handling tens or even hundreds of thousands of records, and hundreds of simultaneous users.

At Tribal we have considerable experience of designing relational databases, always with an eye on scalability. We consider not just the size needed for today, but for tomorrow and the day after.