Is Ruby On Rails relevant

Hi:
I am always keen to learn about new languages.
I have heard about Ruby On Rails; and of Ruby.

I have a large MySQL database, comprising archived data. I want to access it, read only, but with a facility to offer lots of queries. It is all internal to the Company. Ideally a web based solution.
My question is - is this something ROR can handle easily? Or am I trying to force it to do something it is not designed for?
I have written  an internal website , written in php. But I would like to try ROR.
The  ROR walkthroughs all refer to building carts and other interactivity; I just want to read and analyse the data.
If the answer is yes - what manuals are recommended? and IDE?
Using netbeans 6.9 (and I know Ruby support stops at 7!)

Thanks!