since I had no luck, nobody answered to my question posted a month ago (subject WebServices chaining), i'll try again.
Can you please help me understand just how can one implement this 'simple' scenario.
CLIENT ---> INTERMEDIARY ---> ENDPOINT
Many clients will connect with different "payload weight", which roughly determines the computational time for each request. The ultimate goal would be that intermediary node acts as a queue and a load balancer for a number of endpoints.
My first goal would be just simply the intermediary to receive the request, read the headers, make some database operations, make some choices and if everything is ok, forward the request with new headers to "real" web service (ENDPOINT) to do the job. If successful, the intermediary again does some processing and returns the result back to the originator of the request - the CLIENT.
Now, what happens if in the middle of this process another request comes in? The intermediary should be clever enough to know that the ENDPOINT is busy and act accordingly. I read about synchronous and asynchronous requests and other theoretical stuff which I could find on the internet, but I am still confused. If asynchronous services would be a way to go, then I guess the clients will have to be smarter and the choice of technology narrower. If request-response mechanism could do the job, it would be easier, wouldn't be?
I am aware (it is even a demand) that I will have to implement several ENDPOINTs which would work as a farm of the same services to increase the efficiency and the reliability of service will be one of the major questions, so I don't want to start implementing a bad architecture which will limit my options later on.
I have written a client which I installed on several machines to stress test the ENDPOINT web service. I bombarded the poor workhorse from those machines with requests coming apart just under a second from each. Each response lasted roughly from 15 to 45 seconds, but they all got processed successfully. Now, I would be a happy person if I could be able to squeeze this intermediary in-between to do some logging. I guess HTTP nature of request-response loop handled the queue for me. How do I do this with intermediary node?
Does my question narrows down to handling sessions? If client sends a request which takes a long time to process, how to handle another client's request which came seconds after the first one?
Am I missing something very crucial here?
I am developing with Java and WebObjects as the application server, just to note, but not to disturb you. WO uses Axis engine.
Regards, bob
