I am in SERIOUS need of adding an SQL database to a RW8/Foundry site I am building. I came across the Kuler SQL stack during research and it appears that this stack is not well supported. I hope this is not the case, but that is what I have read.
That said, does anyone know of another SQL stack that can be used with Foundry? If so, this will really help with my migraine. );
Thank you for any help you can provide.
@jay machst Du da nicht was?
Kuler has not been sold/supported for several years now, so it is not an option Iâm afraid.
Datably is under going testing and supports MySQL /Postgres etc. But not yet released.
Thanks for the info.
I will visit and hope it will be released very soon.
Anything here thatâs of use?
Thanks for the link, Rob!
I need to explain my situation.
All of the PHP/database scripts that I am aware of, all point to the domain name to send the data to. This makes all the sense in the world, but again going back to the scripts I am aware of, the data sent is shown on index.php after parsing, etc.
I do NOT want the data to appear on the home page because (1) this data/webpage needs to be password protected, and (2) I do not want the home/index.php page to be password protected. How handy would that be?
That said, I am hoping that a RW stack will somehow help in re-directing the sensor data I need sent to the web database away from the home/index page.
I could be chasing my tail, but thatâs my story. Hopefully, it will make a lick of sense to someone. Ha!
Thanks for your help.
Just heard back from the EasyDB folks: their stack cannot support real-time data, so thatâs out.
Back to the drawing board. I may have to rebuild this stack from HTML, CSS and PHP and forgo all the RW/Foundry goodness. Such is life.
Thanks!
Remembering your other postâŠwhat documentation/advice comes with your WiFi sensors for the tank levels? What protocol/format is the data in?
If you can build it yourself, you could still use RW as the framework and add you own code as required. Itâs not necessarily one of the other, you should be able to blend the two to get what you want.
Hi Paul,
The data comes from a microcontroller that I built. The data is all numeric, or floats, to be more precise to represent temperature ÂșF. This is all just testing for the time being.
As far as the protocol, I am using a POST php protocol (if that is what you meant).
Now for the good news: A few minutes ago I was finally sucessfull in sending sensor data from the the microcontroller to a webpage. And, more importantly, it was not the index.php webpage.
The data was not âprettyâ, but it was indeed real data. So Iâm jumping upân down about that. This is probably olâ news to a lot of folks, but not to me.
All that remains is to learn how to create the database so the data will appear in nice, neat columns and rows. It seems to never end, but I am enjoying every minute of it. Right!
If my luck continues, I may still be able to use RW8/Foundry and not have to do it all manually.
Thank you for your comments.
Apologies for nudging in on the thread but I wanted to ask a couple of questions which you certainly do not have to answer.
You are, by the sounds of things, microbatching water level/tank capacity telemetry datapoints into a (MariaDB) database, excerpts from which will be shown on your page. Why? If that data is actionable, the last thing you are going to need is to be relying on a bio-entity looking at some webpage and âreactingâ. What utility do you gain from merely displaying the data a website?
If you DO just want to display the data, then what you are describing is screaming out for a middleware to query for aggregated data and other interesting statistics. Why not let the DB be the DB and just wire the page PHP or JS up to a middleware and exchange JSON?
Have you considered melting that near-real-time data into a cloud service like (Azure) Event Hubs or Event Grid or GCP Pub/Subs in order to wire the incoming data into something action-able using something like functions on logic apps? That way what you show on the site could be more aligned to the story around the event and its associated handling. Remember, bio-entities are not reliable and cannot be trusted to visit sites and do âstuffâ - presumably this data must contain some sort of actionably content? â Automate it!
Just my $00.02 but it seemed to me that you, are coming at this from a long way back, in order to create something which might just present as your next problem or frustration, IF operational intervention is your workflow or user experience objective.
There is absolutely no need to apologize for your thoughtful comments.
Hereâs the background on all of this: My family are memberâs of a water association which has two water tanks that provide water for 62 families. There have been more than one occasion where water levels go very low leaving some households without water. These âoccasionsâ are generally caused by homeownerâs leaving water hoses running for days, line breakage by construction crews et al.
Tank Level Readings
Tank level readings are taken manually, by climbing up the squirrel cage, opening the hatch and peering inside. Method two is by a pressure gauge mounted at the bottom of each tank. Method three is by tapping or touching the tank and so on. All of these methods are poor at best.
WiFi
The state (NM) forced the association to install wifi as a âsecurityâ precaution or surround each tank with a fence. This logic is beyond my comprehension because neither is secure in any way. Regardless, when I became aware of the wifi installation, I realized I could build Arduino wifi sensors to monitor each tank level.
I thought that would be the difficult part, but at this moment in time, it was childâs play in comparison to getting this bloody database set up.
Board Member Feedback
Now, besides setting up the database, the other issue is working off of vague email comments from the board members such as âwe need to see the data.â What that actually meant was never clarified to me. I hear from them monthly, if Iâm lucky. My emails are ignored. All of these folks have full time jobs so I cut them a lot of slack. For the time being anyway.
The board president only cares about tank levels so he can react to low levels by switching valves if one tank gets low and switches back if or when the tank recovers. He could care less about historic data. His only concern is keeping us in water and for that we are all grateful.
Water Loss
At the moment, the association has a staggering 40% water loss rate. This is hard to comprehend, but for instance, if they are charged for 100 gallons of water, they only have 60 gallons to sell because the other 40 gallons vanish. Hard to believe, I know, but it is what it is. This, I believe, is why the single engineer on the board wants to see historic data. I would argue that this will not solve the water loss issue, but she may have a plan.
I have several (electronic) ideas to determine if this loss is real or not, but will wait until we have a face-to-face because emails are a waste of time.
Dashboard
At the moment when I am taking sensor data I am using Adafruitâs IO to visualize this sensor data as shown next:
I hope to create a dashboard such as this on their website. I am not certain at this moment, if this will require a database or not. However, the president really liked this because he would know the tank status at a glance when connected with his smart phone.
Bottom Line
While it may sound that Iâm moaning and groaning about all of this, the truth is that I am actually enjoying all of it. I have learned quite a bit over the last two months or so and all of my $$ and efforts are going for a genuinely good cause.
And, for the sake of clarity, I am not charging the association for the hardware or my time. However, I have been encouraged (by a non-member) to apply for a patent for my sensor board, but have not decided to pursue that venue or not. The micro controller has already been tested on a tank and works as it should.
Now, if I can only get the database configured âŠ
Thanks again for your post.
Can you clarify exactly which Arduino kit you are using ( name and model ). I say kit, because you stated it was easy to set up so Iâm guessing it might have been an Uno or similar?
What Iâm trying to communicate is that you are describing a use-case which is (to me anyway) screaming out for separation of concerns.
For example:
Sensor collects and micro batches the source data.
Source data is persisted and made available for queries ( suggest use a cheap cloud service for this?)
Web integration hits a query layer (Ajax) and displays the data.
I suspect that youâll be able to demonstrate the fluctuations in the tank levels with additional insight into humidity and temperature. That alone probably wonât reveal the cause.
Are there any downstream flow points which could also be measured?
I think you are going to need additional datasets otherwise you are at risk of proving that the problem you thought existed probably does exist.
If your aim is to solve the problem you are going to need additional (downstream) data points to correlate tank volume to demand or other physical factors.
If your aim is only to learn more about database integration I suggest you consider stepping back from this real world use case and set up a lab which is not tied to 3rd party expectation, implied outcomes or maintenance.
The delta between hero and villain is sometimes just one error.
I contacted them. The Datably stack should be available in the first week of JulyâŠ
Iâd like to know about Datably too, but got no response from them.
Here is the response I received from them on 19 JUN 21:
" Do you have an interface to the database which you can use to populate the database table? I am asking because Datably does not offer an API right now, so loading data would be on your side. In a future release, I might add a way to upload data directly.
Best regards,
Juergen"
I would like to see some demoâs of this app when itâs released. For the time being, Iâm sticking with my Plan B.
I hope this helps in some way.
This project sounds fascinating and shares a few key details with a DB project Iâm working on.
I recently connected with @jay who is finalizing a db/stack solution for this.
I will look for the other thread and update here.
Read a bit more here!
http://forums.realmacsoftware.com/t/re-sql-database-help/39309
Datably is available now⊠bought it, not tested yet 
Yes, I am waiting with the announcement here until it is approved on rapidweavercommunity 
In the meantime: https://datably.navigio.io
Great start! Canât wait to see how the stack develops!
