Each monitor exports text files and stores them in a local folder. I've thought about having a process that could detect when a text file has been written and then parse that data and send it to the database. But it's not flawless. If by accident someone copied a text file to that folder the process would just try to write that file in the database and then everything would go wrong. And if something can go wrong, it will go wrong.
The unique identifier would be the formula number that its beeing tested. That problem is solved. They never had an IT guy here before, so their network is not really solid and IP's are atributed dinamically.
One of the machines is a scanner and the output is of course, an image. A local software will read that image and will output text data. But the image itself its lost. Apart from storing data it should also store images. That image should be store for later use (reporting and such). Images are exported in jpg.
I'll probably just use XML as an exporting measure instead of HTML and POST methods. Shouldnt be as painful as you so politely put it.
Just kidding.
And let me tell you guys.. designing the DB for this company will be hell :S