Stephen Adkins wrote:
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.
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.
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?
