MS SQL question

[bob brazeau]

Hey guys, I realize this is a hot button issue and am not trying to ruffle any feathers.

We are looking to switch out website from a lamp stack to a CMS and Drupal is the one I am championing. The site itself would be running on a mysql cluster. One of the issues of our environment is some data sits on a MS SQL server. Currently we have it setup to connect via odbc and everything is fine.

While we wouldn't need Drupal to use MS SQL as a backend server, there is data some we'd need to grab for some of the pages. D6 doesn't support MSSQL though the abstraction layer, but would it be possible to code the modules to connect to the server on their own and use php code to process the db data? And what is the ick factor on that? NOT for MSSQL but the approach - or if there is a better way please inform me.

Thanks!

Bob

[David Metzler]

When pulling data from external sources, I simply don't use the  
drupal database abstraction layer at all. It doesn't have an ick  
factor for me at all. I use the approach your talking about with  
great success at my university.  We connect to Oracle and MSSql to  
get external data, and as a result have built quite a nice portal  
using drupal as the application development framework.

Good luck.

Dave


On Jul 7, 2009, at 10:07 AM, bobbrazeau@... wrote:

> Hey guys, I realize this is a hot button issue and am not trying to  
> ruffle any feathers.
>
> We are looking to switch out website from a lamp stack to a CMS and  
> Drupal is the one I am championing. The site itself would be  
> running on a mysql cluster. One of the issues of our environment is  
> some data sits on a MS SQL server. Currently we have it setup to  
> connect via odbc and everything is fine.
>
> While we wouldn't need Drupal to use MS SQL as a backend server,  
> there is data some we'd need to grab for some of the pages. D6  
> doesn't support MSSQL though the abstraction layer, but would it be  
> possible to code the modules to connect to the server on their own  
> and use php code to process the db data? And what is the ick factor  
> on that? NOT for MSSQL but the approach - or if there is a better  
> way please inform me.
>
> Thanks!
>
> Bob

[John Fiala]

On Tue, Jul 7, 2009 at 11:18 AM, David Metzler<metzlerd@...> wrote:

> When pulling data from external sources, I simply don't use the drupal
> database abstraction layer at all. It doesn't have an ick factor for me at
> all. I use the approach your talking about with great success at my
> university.  We connect to Oracle and MSSql to get external data, and as a
> result have built quite a nice portal using drupal as the application
> development framework.
>
> Good luck.
>
> Dave

Agreed - if it's not the primary database, and you're careful about
intentional or unintentional sql injection, there's no problem with
using other methods to connect to the MS SQL db.  Have fun!

--
John Fiala

[Kyle Mathews-2]

This post by Larry Garfield provides an excellent run-down of the different ways of using remote data in Drupal:
http://www.palantir.net/blog/remote-data-drupal-museums-and-web-2009

Kyle

Research Assistant
Entrepreneurship and Technology Center @ BYU
kyle.mathews2000.com/blog

On Tue, Jul 7, 2009 at 11:23 AM, John Fiala <jcfiala@...> wrote:

On Tue, Jul 7, 2009 at 11:18 AM, David Metzler<metzlerd@...> wrote:
> When pulling data from external sources, I simply don't use the drupal
> database abstraction layer at all. It doesn't have an ick factor for me at
> all. I use the approach your talking about with great success at my
> university.  We connect to Oracle and MSSql to get external data, and as a
> result have built quite a nice portal using drupal as the application
> development framework.
>
> Good luck.
>
> Dave

Agreed - if it's not the primary database, and you're careful about
intentional or unintentional sql injection, there's no problem with
using other methods to connect to the MS SQL db.  Have fun!

--
John Fiala