E-commerce and Linux

paRcat asks: "My company is using a proprietary system for letting our customers order online. It takes the order, and as soon as they click submit, sends it on to our main system via a serial connection. Both systems are running on NT, and they die constantly. I've been pushing to get Linux in here, and I think replacing the online ordering server is the best way to start. Our catalog has around 25,000 items in it. It's held in an Access database right now... around 14 Megs. I suppose it could be converted, but every time a pricing update comes out, it's distributed in mdb format. What tools exist for Linux that can do what I need? It just needs to allow access to the database, take the order, and send it down the serial line. I was contemplating setting up mod_perl and just writing a bunch of code, but I'm still a bit new to PERL, and I'm not even sure if that's the best choice. " Apache, Perl/mod_perl and MySQL/Msql/PostgreSQL all sound perfect for this application, but the issue of getting the Access information (both the existing data and the future updates) might be a problem. Any ideas?

Comments

Been there, done that

[SheldonYoung]

Okay, can say I've done this exact thing. We started out prototyping on IIS and Access because we didn't have a decent Linux box yet and Access makes it easy to prototype databases. Our plan was always to go to Linux, but we were forced into it by IIS doing some freaky things.

The perl was a piece of cake to move over - we even switched to mod_perl along the way. The database, however, was a bit of a pain. We moved it first from Access to SQL 7, then used SQL 7s data export function to stuff it into Informix on the Linux box. It was a nightmare, there are so many things that just don't move across. Views, identifiers longer than 18 characters, etc.

My suggestions, from hard-won experience are:

1. Run a multiplatform web server, not IIS. Unless you're using ASP or such it should be simple. This is by far the best move we made - It was almost bearable to develop on NT once IIS was out of the way.
   
   
2. Clean up your database architecture and make your SQL portable. Don't assume TRUE == 1 or you can escape table names with [].
   
   
3. Move in stages. Get mySQL, Informix, Oracle, whatever running under NT and move the data to it first. Then move it to the Linux box when things have settled down. Same with switching web servers.
   

This is a good lesson in why to create portable applications. Just move in pieces and you'll gradually see your system get more and more stable, without getting above your head in new things to learn.

Good luck.