IBM Systems Magazine, Power Systems - IBM i digital edition, February 2009 - 24

If you use the IBMDB2I storage engine for the contacts table of the application, the data would be available to the SugarCRM application as well as DB2 Web Query. on IBM i using the default MyISAM storage engine store their data in files in the IFS that represent the MySQL database tables (see Figure 3, page 22). The new IBMDB2I storage engine for MySQL facilitates the storing of the data into DB2 for IBM i database tables (see Figure 4, page 22). Here’s the key: The application written to the MySQL API set doesn’t change, which means any open-source application deployed on IBM i that’s written to that API set can store its data in DB2 for IBM i tables and that data then becomes available to other applications. Additionally, the storage engine to use is definable down to the table level so only those tables that need to be accessible outside of the open-source application would need to use the IBMDB2I storage engine. This allows for finer optimization than defining the storage engine/method at the database or server level. provide. Suppose you’ve deployed the popular open-source SugarCRM application on IBM i to provide a CRM system for your company. Further suppose that one of the reports you’d like to get from the application is a graphical representation of the spread of customer contacts geographically so you can determine the best approach for a targeted marketing campaign. While the SugarCRM application has the data necessary to generate such a report, it doesn’t provide the report itself. If you use the IBMDB2I storage engine for the contacts table of the application, the data would be available to the SugarCRM application as well as DB2 Web Query (see Figure 5, below). Now, since the data resides in a DB2 for IBM i database table, you could use IBM DB2 Web Query to produce the desired report. You could further this integration by using the Web Query Software Development Kit to build the report into the open-source SugarCRM application. A Real-World Example You can see an example of the integration of access provided by the IBMDB2I storage engine in the capability to leverage IBM i applications to provide analysis and reports on opensource data that the open-source application itself may not Setting the Storage Engine For new applications, you can specify the default storage engine in several ways. If all new tables being created are to use the IBMDB2I storage engine, you can specify the default storage engine in the mysql configuration file (/etc/my.cnf) by adding the following to the database server section (labeled [mysqld] by default): default-storage-engine=IBMDB2I Figure 5 You can also change the default storage engine by including an argument on the startup of the mysql process: --default-storage-engine=IBMDB2I Apache PHP MySQL IBM i You can even specify the table to be used when the table is created: CREATE TABLE t1 (…) ENGINE=IBMDB2I; For tables that already exist, the storage engine can be changed through the ALTER statement: 24 FEBRUARY 2009 ibmsystemsmag.com/ibmi
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IBM Systems Magazine, Power Systems - IBM i digital edition, February 2009

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IBM Systems Magazine, Power Systems - IBM i digital edition, February 2009
