Design suggestions for representing data from SQL server DB...?

Hello everyone.

I apologise if this is the wrong place to post a question such as this and I also apologise for my relative ignorance towards web development technologies among such pros! I have written basic websites in the past using HTML\JAVASCRIPT\CSS but thats about it.

I was hoping someone would be able to suggest the right 'technologies' in terms of efficiency and ease of implementation for the following :

I have data in an SQL server 2005 DB about Servers. data includes things like Server name, domain, cpu speed, memory, hardware type etc. etc

Ultimately I would love to repesent this data, on a webpage on an intranet in a visually abstract way i.e. big squares or 'fields' representing domains. Within the domains you can see Servers as 'flowers' and each 'petal' represents CPU, Memory and similar data. All colour coded and accessible so you can move around from server to server, domain to domain.

The problem I have is the technology in between i.e. getting it from the DB into (HTML ? CSS?). I've looked into SQL reporting but I don't think that's the right route. Could anyone suggest the best way to dynamically create such a view of data ? I'm happy to code as much as required and learn whatever, i'm just not experienced in evaluating which technologies to use to get A into B.

Apologies for such a heavy, broad question but I would love and appreciate anyones questions and suggestions.

regards,

Nick

I'm assuming your database is setup and running (with its tables and data) so I won't go there.

You will need to get messy with some server-side language (PHP/ASP) to retrieve the information from the database and generate the HTML.

Here's a good place to get started:
http://www.w3schools.com/sql/sql_intro.asp

As for using flowers and petals to represent the data, it's possible, but you're gonna need some good CSS skills to piece it all together. I recommend you start by simply writing the data into a table. Step 2 would be to use graphics to represent the data (create bars by changing image widths based on the data you retrieve).

Then, when you're comfortable with retrieving and manipulating the data, just do whatever you like to it...

Good luck.