IMAT5210: Restaurant Details Facility Web Application Project

This document presents a comprehensive solution for a restaurant web application developed as part of the IMAT5210 E-Commerce Software module. The project involves the design and implementation of a restaurant details facility using ASP.NET, HTML, CSS, C#, and AJAX. The application utilizes a 3-tier architectural model, separating the presentation, application, and data layers. Key functionalities include database interaction with SQL Server, user authentication, dynamic content display, and a real-time search feature implemented with AJAX. The solution emphasizes secure password storage using hashing techniques and discusses the importance of preventing unauthorized access. The document includes figures illustrating the application's search results and list of restaurants. The project demonstrates the application of AJAX for improved user experience and performance, along with scalability and modularity. The conclusion highlights the benefits of the chosen architecture and security measures.

Restaurant web application 1
Restaurant web application
By
Author

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Restaurant web application
This development of the restaurant details system involved the development of a
number of functionalities including displaying of content from the database, storing
information into the database, authentication system to allow for user registration, update of
information, searching system that is capable of supporting live search and many more
modules. The development of the restaurant is done using a number of tools and languages.
The tools are provided by asp.net framework including web forms that allows for automatic
generation of forms and SQL Server that allows for database creation, connection, access and
manipulation among other tools. The languages used include HTML to develop the interface
of the user, C# to ensure the logic of the system is working correctly, CSS is used to style the
user interface and scripting languages such as ajax to ensure dynamic web pages are created
within our system. Other than the development of the system analysis was done to ensure
secure storage was done are properly implemented securing the database integrity.
Analysis
Restaurant detail application using a 3-tier model
The architectural model that have been applied in the development of the restaurant
detail application is a 3-tier architectural model which is an example of a multitier
architectural model. multitier architectural model is an architectural model which uses client
server type of relationship, it is made up of 3 layers that is the presentation, data and
application layer which are physically into their own distinct and separate sections and code
using different functions. Multi-tier architectural models provides developers with a means to
develop flexible, scalable and reusable software or applications. The division of a software
into a number of tier gives developers the freedom to modify the existing application by
adding layers on top of existing layers. This helps developers to avoid being restricted on a

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single the layer. The may extend or expand the application as much as they need to.
Restaurant detail application was designed using a 3-tier architectural model because it
supports scalability, improve performance due to better network utilization, caching of
request by the presentation tier that reduces the load on the application and data tier. The 3-
tier in restaurant detail system is implemented using aspx.cs files to develop the application
tier, aspx files to develop the presentation layer and data layer is implemented using
restaurant_details.mdf. the presentation tier made use of HTML and CSS, the application
layer used C# and AJAX and the data layer used SQL statements to develop the connection
Application of AJAX
AJAX Is the acronym for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML. It is uses javacript and
html dom to develop for displaying of information and and XMLHttpRequset to request
information from a given web server. The restaurant detail system has applied AJAX’s
synchronous behaviour in two distinct areas.
The development of a searching mechanism capable of allowing users to search for a
user’s information and get the response in real time. The users may provide any characters
and then the system will filter out the ones that don’t meet the requirements.
The display of information within a table has also been used to display a list of
restaurants and users in a table.
Results of a search
Figure 1search results
Source (Author, 2019)

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list of restaurants using ajax
Figure 2 list of restaurants
Source (Author, 2019)
Secure password storage
One of the most potential problems for any computer-based system or application is
unauthorized access to information. Such system includes e-commerce and many more.
There are a number of consequences and impacts caused by unauthorized access, these
includes loss of critical data of a company that may lead to access of critical section of the
company such financial information, company strategies, company contracts and many more.
There a number of ways of ensuring that passwords are secured, they include encrypting of
the passwords before storing them, use of firewall to protect the company database, use of
authorization system which will only allow access of the database to a given group of people
who hold a given rank within the company such the managers, CEO, COO and the company
president, and lastly use of strong passwords that will not be easily cracked or guessed. To
have strong passwords the passwords must long and complex as this will ensure hackers will
not be able to easily guess and thus might get frustrated and give up on trying to hack and
guess the password. Use passwords which have a combination of characters, symbols and
numbers in unpredictable manner. Other than the authorization system with the restaurant

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application, security of passwords storage in restaurant detail system has been developed and
implemented using a hashing technique. The hashing algorithm used has been applied on the
passwords fields to ensure that passwords of users cannot be used by anyone else other than
the user even if they breach and hack the user’s table. A hash method defined within the
crypto class in ASP.NET has been used in hashing the passwords since it supports SHA-254
hashing algorithm.
Figure 3 shows SHA-1 being used in the login section
Figure 3 hashed password
Source (author, 2019)
Results after hashing
Additional use case
The additional use is the development of searching mechanism that provides users
with a means of easily getting information about a specific user by specifying the username
or real name of the user whose information they wish to access and display. The search
mechanism has been implemented using AJAX in order to ensure quick responses of
information from the database.
Database stores a number of information and data in different tables and each having
a given quantity of records, however, users sometimes do not desire to retrieve all the
information stored within a database or a table or even a field but they may want specific part
of the records and view. To do this there is a need to have a searching algorithm that is
capable of querying the entire database, accessing the information specified and returning the
data which has been requested for, this is why the searching use case has been developed.

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While developing the searching algorithm there was a need to demonstrate AJAX’s
behaviour and importance when coming use with real time system which require fast
response time. the users’ table was displayed on the page below the search input. As the user
was entering the key words to search for the table was filtered according to the corresponding
key value. All the value that did not meet the standards were removed from the table, if there
is no user who corresponds to the key value requested within the search button then the table
came back blank showing that that user does not exist with the database
Results using the live search system
Figure 4 results of searching for user whose name starts with 'ben'
Source (Author, 2019)
Conclusion
The restaurant web application which have been developed using a multitier architectural
model deign is capable of been scaled, extended, expanded, modularized and more
importantly it has the capability of coping up with the upcoming technological advancement
in today’s tech-driven society. Using of ajax within the restaurant web application has
reduced the amount of traffic needed to enable the communication of client and servers, it

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also ensures the improvement of user experiences by allowing the serial updates of webpages
and has improved performance and response time due to the storage of cache request from
the application layer. It is important to have secure password storage for web application, the
restaurant web application has used hashing to secure their passwords which will ensure that
even if the database is hacked, the hacker will not be able to decipher the password to get the
original plain text.

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