Meshing with existing inventory database

[monkle]

I am bringing up zencart for the first time for our new website(s). We already have a full-fledged relational database full of all of the information we need on products. This brings up a couple issues, but what I'm dealing with right now is this:

1. Displaying product
I have already changed the configure.php file to point to a single external image directory. It displays broken images in the admin screen still, but it works in the cart.

Where it really breaks down for me right now:
Can I make zencart read off of our existing product database for all of the product detail, including quantity in stock, product attributes, etc.? Our database structure looks similar at a glance, but I have not been able to find any database information in the template sections. Would I have to go into the core code to do this? What are my options? I am looking for both fast dev time and also clean upkeep, but we want real-time inventory. The website is not the only thing touching our inventory.

I have looked around a bit, but I haven't found any articles on this. If any exist, where can they be found? If not, how is the best way to handle this? Any ideas? I am working on a very tight deadline. Any input would be greatly appreciated.

[kobra]

You can look at the tables between the 2 and determine if the current data is structured correctly for Zen Cart. As the cart relies on the DB for so many things it would be best/fastest to bring the current data into the cart DB structured as the cart requires it. This of course depends on what type of interfacting is done with the current DB and what this is used for - bottomline need to use one DB for this and either change the cart code (which is extensive) or the existing code that is ??, to access a single DB structure

I think thty there is a DB structure in the wiki