Apache Server, Perl and Navision data

Andreas_Lundin
Andreas_Lundin Member Posts: 91
edited 2003-08-22 in Navision Financials
Hi all

I'm currently experimenting with a combination of Apache Server, Perl and Navision data(extracting data through ODBC or ADO) on the Win32 platform(Windows95, Window98 And the 2000 release).

If anyone would like to know about how my little project is progressing, I would be happy to share my experiences(both good or bad) with anyone who's interested. So just drop a note on this forum, and I'll supply information during my investigations.

Has anyone else on this forum been experimenting with this combination? If yes, please place a comment or suggestion on this forum.

So far, I have a Windows 98 machine running Apache server and Perl for Win32. I have established a working ODBC/ADO connection to my Navision database, and it's possible for me to query data from the database, and display it as HTML output. The next step is to make the request dynamic, enabling a user request and return the requested data.

Regards
Andreas L.

Comments

  • Andreas_Lundin
    Andreas_Lundin Member Posts: 91
    Hi Luc

    Yes, I'm aware of the Microsoft's Message Queue in the Web Shop solution. But am I totally wrong when saying that MMQ simply is a multi threaded message distribution tool?. It's main purpose is to handle requests of any kind, and optimize the package flow between the various components in the system. And that's the reason for only needing one Navision lincense.

    The MMQ is capable of using an ODBC source connection 100% percent, because of its administration of all messages/packages calling the ODBC source.

    Perl of course cannot supply as much multithreading as the MMQ, but it should be possible to implement a subset of the MMQ capabilities into Perl. It basically only a question of handling threads and requests. And that should be pretty simple to handle requests in a large scale.

    Regards
    Andreas L.
  • Andreas_Lundin
    Andreas_Lundin Member Posts: 91
    Hi again

    Just some statistics:

    Requirements:

    - a 10 user Navision license
    - every user request is estimated to be using a Navision connection with the duration of 2 sec.(Only data processing).

    With the above requirements in mind, the system should be able to handle 60/2 x 10 = 300 ODBC data requests within a minute. This requires that the Perl code controls any request process, and that as much data processing as possible is done outside Navision. So even with a 1 user license, you should be able to handle at least 30 requests a minute. It's just a question of optimizing the dataflow(piping and process handling).

    Regards
    Andreas Lundin
  • John_Tegelaar
    John_Tegelaar Member Posts: 159
    Just to throw in my $0,02

    We just finished a "WebShop - Lite" solution for a customer using a JDWK Java Server (could be Apache too) at the web-end, and the JDBC-ODBC Bridge software from EasySoft, UK. (see www.easysoft.com for details and free demo) to connect to NF. This bridge allows multiple connections through a single ODBC session and works very fast. The webpages (jsp pages) are created dynamically, using some JavaBeans to execute the SQL queries.

    Note: Be sure to use the Navision 2.6 ODBC driver, previous versions have some bugs which might give you troubles.

    The JDBC-ODBC Bridge software isn't cheap (some $650 per server), but pays itself more than back by reducing development time tremendously. To illustrate: We had this web-solution running, starting with nothing, in about two weeks of development time.

    John
  • Luc_VanDyck
    Luc_VanDyck Member, Moderator, Administrator Posts: 3,633
    I think the real problem with this kind of configuration is that for every Web-user that requests data from your Navision database, you need a user in the Navision license-file.

    So 10 concurrent web-users = 10 users in fin.flf. When using Microsoft's Message Queue (technology used in Navision Web Shop), you only need 1 user.
    No support using PM or e-mail - Please use this forum. BC TechDays 2024: 13 & 14 June 2024, Antwerp (Belgium)
  • mod
    mod Member Posts: 12
    Halo at all,

    I would like to have your sorces about Perl, Apache and Navision.
    I think that is a good Idee! But think about using PHP instead of Perl. That is much easier to use. And you have the opption to use Classes for the Database handling. I have still a classes (one for handling, one for navigation) to use. The only thing is to implement ODBC instead of Postgres handler.

    mod
  • Amargosa
    Amargosa Member Posts: 2
    Hello @ all

    Once i was trying to obtain data from navision via ODBC-PHP - but it didnt work :cry:

    Im a experienced user in PHP with Apache or IIS5 but im still unable to get navision-odbc running with/in php :(

    Has anyone some information or tips for me? That would be very helpful - thx alot !!

    :P Greetz,
    Ben
    Ben the Amargosa Sun
    webmaster@amargosasun.de
  • jase@tomatosource.com.au
    jase@tomatosource.com.au Member Posts: 1
    Andreas said:
    If anyone would like to know about how my little project is progressing, I would be happy to share my experiences(both good or bad) with anyone who's interested. So just drop a note on this forum, and I'll supply information during my investigations.

    Has anyone else on this forum been experimenting with this combination? If yes, please place a comment or suggestion on this forum.

    Hi Andreas,
    very keen to hear your story. I am a newbie to Navision however an old hand with Perl/Linux etc. I am looking at extracting a subset of data from Navision using the ODBC driver. I'll probably use ActivePerl (win32) to do the work but instead of making the data available immediately on the web will package and FTP to web site (Navision and Web and separated both physically and logically) where I'll probably use a basic MS Access back-end (client's budget is somewhat limited and does not stretch to a MS SQL Server implementation :cry: ).

    Of course this will all be seamlessly automated :wink:

    Very keen to hear if you think this is a good way to go and what experiences you've had doing something similar. I'll be getting stuck into it all over the next couple of weeks and would be happy to keep people here updated if interested.

    Cheers,
    Jase.
    Jason Watson
    Director, TomatoSource
    jase@tomatosource.com.au
  • philippegirod
    philippegirod Member Posts: 191
    Hi Andreas,

    I'm really happy to see that I'm not alone to studie those topics. I started to implement a relation between a financial database and a PHP page.

    At the moment i worked with dataports linked with a MySQL database, but I know this is not the best solution. If you know something about an ODBC wich allows a PHP page to search in a Navision database, please, let me know.

    Thanks

    Philippe
    Andreas Lundin wrote:
    Hi all

    I'm currently experimenting with a combination of Apache Server, Perl and Navision data(extracting data through ODBC or ADO) on the Win32 platform(Windows95, Window98 And the 2000 release).

    If anyone would like to know about how my little project is progressing, I would be happy to share my experiences(both good or bad) with anyone who's interested. So just drop a note on this forum, and I'll supply information during my investigations.

    Has anyone else on this forum been experimenting with this combination? If yes, please place a comment or suggestion on this forum.

    So far, I have a Windows 98 machine running Apache server and Perl for Win32. I have established a working ODBC/ADO connection to my Navision database, and it's possible for me to query data from the database, and display it as HTML output. The next step is to make the request dynamic, enabling a user request and return the requested data.

    Regards
    Andreas L.

    My candle burns by both ends, it will not last the night,
    But oh my foes and oh my friends, it gives a lovely light

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