A Case Study of Findmeabnb.co.uk
By John Crickett, copyright 2002 Crickett Software Limited

Introduction

Earlier this year Crickett Software Limited, undertook the development of the bed and breakfast location service findmeabnb.co.uk. This article looks at the technology and a technique used to develop the site, and describes how open source software solutions can provide a competitive advantage to the small to medium sized enterprise (SME). Don’t worry though I’m not going to preach the gospel according to GNU!

The Problem

Findmeabnb Limited wanted to develop a website that allowed both the holiday maker, and small businessman to easily find cheap short term accommodation in a town or city that they are not familiar with. There are currently several sites that provide such a service, however they generally provide a pretty limited search, and the owners of Findmeabnb Limited, from personal experience wanted more.

The sites business model required Bed and Breakfast owners to register their Bed and Breakfast on the site for a small yearly fee. They will then be listed in the sites search engine whenever a user undertakes a search for which their establishment matches the specified criteria. Bed and Breakfasts are not generally able to spend a large amount on advertising so it was critical to keep the costs as low as possible. This included everything; build and maintenance costs, hosting, and day to day running costs.

The Solution

We proposed a solution based on PHP and MySQL for the backend database and dynamic page generation, running of a Linux/Apache based hosting provided by Crickett Hosting. WorldPay were chosen to provide secure credit card processes facilities. It was decided that in order to minimise costs payment would only be accepted online, and all communication with the customers would be via email.

Why PHP?

PHP, is an open source scripting language designed to allow developers to quickly develop server driven dynamic content. It has out of the box support for several common RDBMS’ including MySQL. PHP is rapidly becoming a de facto standard for web development on Linux meaning it will always be easy to find a PHP programmer to support the application. PHP is easily integrated into the standard distribution of the Apache web server.

Why Apache?

Apache is the de facto standard web server, with over XXX percent of the web servers world wide being Apache. It is a available across a wide range of platforms, making it feasible to develop on one and port to a different target OS. Again its widespread popularity makes it easy to find developers and system administration staff to maintain it.

Why MySQL?

A powerful multiplatform RDBMS with good developer support. MySQL is another example of platform portable open source software, again making it easy for others to maintain. It also supports SQL, allowing us to write portable database scripts that would allow us to drop in another database, seamlessly.

Why Open Source

We choose open source software for two reasons; it generally has an all round lower cost of ownership for a project such as this, and it is not proprietary. It’s important to remember that open source software is not necessarily free, and the cost of a software license is only a small part of the all round cost of ownership.

We prefer it’s non proprietary nature, not from any particular hatred of a large supplier, but because proprietary software normally ties us to a single platform. Open source allows us to choose the platform that’s right for us. This is a big benefit during development when we can run the same software on our office development server, our dedicated servers housed in London, or a windows laptop for customer demonstrations, all three running different operating systems.

References

Findmeabnb Limited www.findmeabnb.co.uk
Crickett Software Limited www.crickett.co.uk
Crickett Hosting www.cricketthosting.co.uk

Crickett Software Limited can be contacted via email: info@crickett.co.uk