Hello, folks:
I am currently leading the development of an important web application at a Federal agency in Washington, DC. I have had a long, good experience with Hibernate and will use it on this application too. However, I am facing a rather odd situation:
1. We have a legacy desktop application written in VB that uses a MS Access database.
2. The client (another group within my organization) wants a particular new feature but they want it web-based (and so a new web application) so that other Fed agencies can use the new feature in real time.
3. The client wants the new web application to store all new data in a relational database (we have Oracle here) but retrieve all legacy data from Access. The new web application is supposed to display the mix of data (from both databases) in the same table where users will be sorting the columns and navigating through next/previous stuff.
4. And that's where I am facing the problem. Sorting the table and navigating through it works like a charm (after writing some code for Hibernate layer) when all data comes from the same DB. How can I do it when the data comes from two entirely different types of databases? I know I will have to retrieve data from both DB and manipulate it before passing it to the presentation tier - that sounds like a lot of work that will impact the server response time.
I know Hibernate Shards works for horizontal partitions. Is there any tested and popular strategy or solution available for the vertical partition problem I am facing? Also, is not it better to retire the legacy application and write a new web application that will replace it instead of poking its nose in the legacy DB? I would appreciate any feedback. Thanks.
Asif
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