Integration SQL/DB2/Oracle/Navision

Why should HCL Notes/Domino and, for example, SQL be integrated?

In many companies, there is an inventory management system and/or a data warehouse based on a SQL system and, in parallel, Notes/Domino for the exchange of information.
A combination of both worlds can bring enormous increases in efficiency and cost savings.

Some examples from implemented customer projects:
  • Address databases from CRM and merchandise management are automatically compared with each other.
  • Orders are recorded by the sales force via notebook and automatically transferred.
  • Selected customer and article data are transferred to Notes and are available on notebooks, in home offices or, for example, on the Internet.
  • Real estate data from a Lotus brokerage solution flows into financial accounting.

This list goes on and on. Profitable applications can be found wherever an SQL-based and a domino-based solution coexist. 
Of course, many of the described areas of application can also be implemented with on-board tools and add-ons of the respective SQL system.
However, the unrivalled flexibility and excellent integration capability of the Lotus Domino ensure that a frontend Domino database (e.g. a web shop) with a data import/export is simply more cost-effective than the comparable solution in the SQL world.

License and Training/Support Costs
In many cases, employees have access to Notes solely because of e-mail, but do not have access to the merchandise management system. As a rule, it is also not profitable to set up these accesses for occasional queries. 
Transferring the required data to the familiar Notes environment or intranet ensures that licensing costs and training are eliminated.

Our solution
We are specialists in connective solutions. Due to the existing know-how, we have a connector in the form of highly standardized routine collections. This means that customer-specific interfaces can be implemented in the shortest possible time.

The Technology

Dependant upon the operating system used and performance requirements, we implement database connections using different methods:

  • ODBC - mostly free and available for many platforms, but not high performance.
  • JDBC - mostly free and available for some platforms, but not high performance.
  • Manufacturer-specific connectors such as IBM Connector for DB2.
  • Universal third-party connectors such as OpenLink.

We minimize development times by using in-house developed libraries that can be integrated into your existing Notes databases.

Expertise and skills

As the specialist for interfaces, we have implemented projects with the following systems and formats, among others:

  • IBM DB2 on iSeries (AS/400)
  • Oracle 9
  • MS Navision
  • PostgreSQL
  • MySQL
  • MS Access
  • dBase
  • Excel
  • Various text formats (CSV)
  • XML