Improvement of the management of the Walloon Entomological collections thanks to the use of Docker and a SQL database

Details

Supervisors

Legay, Axel ; Francis, Frederic

Faculty

Ecole polytechnique de Louvain
Ecole polytechnique de Louvain

Degree label

Master [120] : ingénieur civil en informatique, à finalité spécialisée
Master [120] en sciences informatiques, à finalité spécialisée

Abstract

This paper brings together the information needed to create a database used for an entomological museum that can be modified from a containerized web application using Docker. It's becoming increasingly necessary to computerize everyday processes, retrieving and modifying museum data is one of them. In our case, our aim was to facilitate the encoding work of Gembloux entomologists, who until now had been working with paper forms and Excel spreadsheets. To achieve this, we designed the database and the architecture of the various microservices that make up our application. We then implemented the database in SQL, as well as the scripts for transforming spreadsheets into SQL data and vice versa, using Python. The front-end and back-end microservices were implemented in JavaScript. Three different types of tests were then carried out: pgTAP tests for the database, SQL injection attempts with SQLMap, and finally user tests based on existing literature. The aim of this work was to make it immediately usable by the Gembloux entomology team, although it can of course be improved in the future to meet new needs that may arise from the collection of new data. The use of microservices allows for much easier evolution and maintainability. The whole implementation of our work is freely accessible on GitHub: https://github.com/Simon13411/Memoire