French company AURA Equipments has launched iStorage for MySQL, a storage engine that integrates DB2/400 databases into MySQL.

Designed primarily for applications written in Zend Corporation’s PHP language, iStorage for MySQL lets developers share data from PHP applications with native OS/400 programs but without requiring any source-code changes. iStorage for MySQL centralizes data in a single storage area and enables access to the data from virtually any type of interface. This arrangement lets developers use DB2/400 as the main database-management system while MySQL remains the major database access API for PHP applications.

In addition, during installations of PHP-based applications on the System i, iStorage for MySQL automatically redirects short-listed tables from MySQL databases to DB2/400, also without modifying application code. The API makes MySQL tables reachable from applications written in RPG or Cobol, and DB2/400 files reachable from PHP applications.