Re: implementing a set of queue-processing servers

Stephen Adkins wrote:

>  
>
>Are you proposing that I use Apache/mod_perl child processes to do
>the transactions to the mainframe?  That doesn't seem right.
>They are then no available to listen for HTTP requests, which is 
>the whole purpose of an apache child process.
>  
>
Also, I suspect it probably wouldn't be efficient memory wise. mod_perl 
processes are large enough with front-end code without randomly having 
them share a bunch of middleware/mainframe processing code also. This 
middleware code could probably be more tightly shared amongst a smaller 
number of processes that just service the mainframe stuff.

In addition, I would advocate middleware prior to talking to a mainframe 
because of security. You can have someone break into the web server but 
if it is hooked direct to the mainframe, then that person can hop 
directly onto the mainframe. Instead, the requests could be mediated and 
well-formed by the middleware. The cracker would have to hack the 
middleware after hacking the web server in order to get to the mainframe 
if you add a layer like this. Of course, maybe this is an Intranet 
application, so such things may not matter...

By the way, how are you getting to the host in the first place? Are you 
using any interesting Perl modules for that? What type of mainframe is 
it? IBM?

>  
>
>  
>