Welllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll.....
You actually have several options. (Let's see if I can do this without
sounding too much like a salesperson :-)
First, you can run your application on IBM i (with MySQL on IBM i) and
"tweak" the PHP in the application to occasionally dig in to DB2 when
you need it. Like customer number integration. Maybe you want to add a
field in Sugar that stores the customer number and want to
validate/synch it against the ERP Customer master in DB2. Then, when a
Salesperson wants to see YTD sales on the Sugar dashboard, all you have
to do is write a little PHP I/O in SQL taking the customer number to the
AR files in DB2 and put it up. Or, you can call an RPG program to pass
the data, etc. To the user it is seamless integration and you have a
CRM implemented for the low-low cost of..................Nothing!
http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/i/software/php/index.html
Second option, IBM is in the process of wrapping the private beta for
the DB2 Storage Engine. This storage engine will allow PHP (and other)
applications to think they are interfacing with MySQL and the data is
actually stored in DB2. This solution would be nice for companies who
would like to put their Sugar CRM data on the green screen! Yes, I said
put your Sugar CRM data on the Green Screen!!!!
http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/21430.wss
Third option, Say you have an AIX LPAR...ODBC across the internal LAN of
the IBM i.
Fourth option, say you have a Linux LPAR (or guest partition)...ODBC
across the internal LAN of the IBM i.
Fifth option, say you have a Windows Blade... ODBC across the internal
LAN of the IBM i.
Personally, I like number one and can't wait for number two!
Sound tempting???
Regards,
Mike
-----Original Message-----
From: web400-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:web400-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Nathan Andelin
Sent: Saturday, January 03, 2009 5:40 PM
To: Web Enabling the AS400 / iSeries
Subject: Re: [WEB400] CRM on Demand
He sounds like a good IBM'er to me...ignoring the obviously good solid
i-solution and going to maximize the services revenue... :)
Okay, now I've got to ask. What makes SugarCRM an IBM i solution? Last
I heard, it was based on a mySQL database. Say my accounting files are
native IBM i tables, but my CRM files are mySQL tables. What sort of
integration options are available to me?
Then there's the language barrier. I'm somewhat proficient in RPG, but
know very little PHP. And my skills as a programmer are perhaps a
couple notches beneath someone like Scott Klement, for example.
No, I've never worked for IBM ;-)
Nathan.
midrange.com
