Rails - Jan 2006 - NOOB - How do I query other databases for data

Hi All,

I''m trying to wrap me head around how I could use Rails for a
particular
app that I''ll be designing that involves multiple legacy databases that
I''ll need to query and update.  Basically, it''s a financial
services
type of app where a customer will log in and be able to check/manage the 
varied types of accounts that they have.  Sounds simple enough right. 
The issue is that these accounts are stored on multiple systems that are 
a mix of DB2, Sybase, SQL Server, and Oracle.  The varied systems are 
because the company has gone through several acquisitions over the last 
decade  and inherited all of these apps.  We want to tie them all 
together so we don''t have to keep shuffling customers around from dept 
to dept.

I was thinking that I could use Rails, but I can''t get past how I can
do
anything more than create a basic application that authenticates users 
and maybe have a lookup type of table that contains all of the users'' 
account numbers that they have on each system.  Creating web services to 
talk to each system or putting in some kind of messaging system (MQ, 
Sonic, etc) is not an option either - not sure how to hook Rails into a 
messaging system anyway.

Oh ya, here''s another dimension to the problem - some of the apps have 
multiple dbs that might contain a particular user''s account (one 
acquisition had separate dbs (same schemas) for each of 4 regions they 
split the country up into).

I come from a Java background and I can see how I can do this with 
Hibernate (and take your pick of any of the popular Java MVC 
frameworks), but after looking at Rails, I hope that there might be a 
better way.

I know this post was long and if you made it here - thanks for at least 
reading this far.  I''m not sure how I could use Rails to make this 
happen, but I''d like to try.

Thanks in advance

Arthur

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