🚀 go-pugleaf

Dear netters,

I have a question regarding the setup of a database for a distributed
organization.
The question has come up in a project we're doing for the regional police
department in Limburg (the Netherlands).

Situation:
The police department is a regional organization with about 1500 people.
It is divided into five districts, each district having 5 or 6 so-called
'base stations'.
So there is one regional office, five district offices and about 25 base
stations.
At each level of the organization (regional, district, base station)
police officers should be able to work with a database to enter
data, such as criminal facts etc.
On the district and regional level, managers should be able to extract
management information from the base stations' and districts' databases.
The operational environment consists of Unix-machines (workstations or PCs,
mini's).

Questions:
What is good literature on this subject?
Does anybody have any information / experience on this subject?
What would be a good setup for the organization of the databases?
Is client/server technology appropriate here?
Are there database manufacturers selling distributed databases?
What are the pitfalls?

Any pointers are welcome...
--
Harm Bakker                                            bakker@cs.rulimburg.nl
Dept. of Computer Science, Fac. of General Sciences
State University of Limburg
P.O. Box 616   6200 MD  Maastricht   Netherlands