SUMMARY

The Internet and its associated application, electronic commerce, have greatly increased the activity of access to databases. This has brought up several issues, one of which is modes of connectivity to the databases. Also, with the desire for access to music, movies, and other media over the Internet, dealing with an expanded set of data types has gained new importance. Access to databases over the Internet has brought increased focus on several database control issues including performance, availability, scalability, and security and privacy. Finally, data extraction into XML provides an important means of data conversion for companies transacting business over the Internet.