title: Using Magento Collections with External DB
body: <p>I'm trying to access data on a external DB from magento from a Module, while using Magento ORM capabilites, I was able to do so by extending the:</p>
  
  <p>Mage_Core_Model_Abstract and Mage_Core_Model_Resource_Db_Abstract classes as shown on this page:</p>
  
  <p><a href="http://www.solvingmagento.com/accessing-an-external-database-from-your-magento-module/" rel="nofollow">http://www.solvingmagento.com/accessing-an-external-database-from-your-magento-module/</a></p>
  
  <p>However when I'm try to use the getCollection() method on my model and I get "false" so I'm wondering if you can create collections based on the "Mage_Core_Model_Resource_Db_Abstract" class, I tried with "Mage_Core_Model_Resource_Db_Collection_Abstract" without any luck.</p>
  
  <p>If it's not possible, does that mean that I have to change my module and use:</p>
  
  <p>Mage_Core_Model_Mysql4_Abstract instead of Mage_Core_Model_Resource_Db_Abstract</p>
  
  <p>As it seems like it has a "Mage_Core_Model_Mysq4_Collection_Abstract" class that works for what I want to do, as shown in:</p>
  
  <p><a href="http://fishpig.co.uk/magento/tutorials/create-external-database-connection/" rel="nofollow">http://fishpig.co.uk/magento/tutorials/create-external-database-connection/</a></p>
  
  <p>I was trying to avoid Mage_Core_Model_Mysql4_Abstract as it sounds to me that it's exclusive for MySQL and I was hoping to keep the code more flexible.</p>
  
  <p>Thanks,</p>