Hi, I work for an free web based mail service, Another.com. We are interested in migrating our service to use either JServ or Tomcat. We currently has a server farm with 10 web servers running Apache and a JRun on each machine. We are interested in changing the architecture to use a small number of Apache web servers (e.g. 2) with a set of load balanced Tomcat or JServ boxes. My understanding is that this arhitecture could be achieved with either Tomcat or JServ. Tomcat is perferable from a developers perspective, but is Tomcat considered subitble for a production environment? I was particulatly worried by the problem of Apache hanging when Tomcat is restarted. Since we release new build of the site regularly, we need a mechanism to rollout new builds onto servers. Concider the following example: We have 2 appache servers (WEB1, WEB2) connecting to 6 Tomcat server (TC1 - TC2). Initial all the tomcat servers TC1 - TC3 are running build 1.0. TC4 - TC6 are out of use. We want to release build 1.1 onto TC4 - TC6. We then need to configure the web boxes to send all new sessions to TC4 - TC6, whilst maintaining old session on TC1 - TC3. Can this be done without restarting the WEB1 and WEB2. At some later date we need to restart TC1 - TC3 with build 1.2, whilst maintain sessions on TC4 - TC6. If we restart TC1 - TC3, will this cause WEB1 and WEB2 to lock? I would appreciate any advice or comments. Cheers Tim Wright Java Engineer Another.com
