Visions uses PHP and MySQL for it’s software and database. The reason we made this decision is because of database migration and platform independence.

Database Migration: Migration in the context of enterprise and web-based applications means that you are moving your application and data from one platform to another. Database migrations are particularly complicated as you have all the challenges of changing your software platform, where some old features are missing, or behave differently and some new features are available and you’d like to take advantage of those.

Platform Independence: By standardizing PHP coding and MySQL, Visions can run on any computer that can run Apache/IIS as a web server. This means you have the option to run Visions on a variety of operating systems with the main servers including Windows, Linux, Mac OS X and Novell 6.5. Even IBM Power Systems (formerly AS/400) has features support Linux operating systems, making Visions available for very large installations.

Now, why is this so important? Let’s say you have a windows server and you are at the end of your hardware and operating system life cycle with your investment fully depreciated:
1. Rather than paying for continuing licensing fees and upgrade costs, you could easily move from a windows server to a Linux Server cutting significant expenses. Security is rock-solid.
2. If you would like to increase capacity to a faster server, you could move from windows to IBM,  providing as much power as needed.

In both situations, you can easily take your software and data with you. Eliminate the employee training and data migration headaches. Visions is the last software you will ever need to purchase.