"The Census Bureau's web development team has relied on
the MySQL database server, as well as other open-source software
such as Perl, Apache, Linux and PHP, to develop these
highly-acclaimed and extraordinarily successful web sites. In fact,
one of the MySQL-run sites won the prestigious Census Bureau's
Director's Award for Innovation in 2001, and the Bureau's web
development team, which is led by Rachael LaPorte Taylor, senior
technology architect for FedStats.gov at the Census Bureau, and
Lisa Nyman, senior Internet technology architect, has begun serving
as informal open-source consultants to their entire organization
(of over 5,000 employees).
The Census Bureau has a site license for the Oracle RDBMS, but
LaPorte Taylor notes that, "We chose to use the MySQL database
server because of its ease of installation, maintainability,
configuration and speed. I've been using open source software since
I got into the business, which was in '92," she continued. "MySQL
has also provided us with huge cost savings, which we have been
able to funnel into other resources."
"FedStats" is a MySQL-powered portal to statistics produced by
the Federal government. Features include a display of the U.S.'s
leading financial and economic indicators at a glance. Users can
use the site's powerful linking and searching capabilities to track
economic and population trends, health care costs, aviation safety,
foreign trade and more. With the ultra-fast MySQL database at the
back end, users can access data from over 200,000 documents and
from more than 70 federal agencies quickly and seamlessly."
