How do I do this? Is it a web service?

Manat

Hi all,

I have an online form, this form must be sent to another server that will parse it. If that server is down, all form data should be queued, also this way data will only be sent from our site's IP address, to prevent DDos attacks.

Anyhow, how do I do this queuing thing? Should I create a SOAP envelope, is a web service needed?

I would apreciate any help anyone can provide.

Thanks

colbec

Have you considered sending dummy data to see if the connection is available? When user enters data into the form you could store the info locally, send a dummy request to the second server, if it goes through, send the real stuff. If not, tell user that info is stored, do they want to leave it in the buffer? If no dump it, if yes store it locally, next user submits info, try server 2 again, if it responds then empty the buffer first and then send the new stuff.

Manat

Hi,

See the problem is that it's connecting to a .nsf file, which is some type of lotus/domino parsing file of some sort. I have to queue, not only if the server is unavailable, but also because we are getting timeouts. Queuing is our only option, yes it would go in the buffer, would we need more RAM for this? lol

Thanks

colbec

By a buffer I just meant some kind of secure temporary storage, whatever is convenient and suitable.

With regard to the data, presumably this is a form that generates a set of variables that are submitted to the parser. Perhaps if the structure of the variables is known they can be stored with the appropriate values and submitted later.

Weedpacket

If you're using sockets to connect, you could set a timeout on fsockopen() and see if the server responds quickly enough. If it does, great, you can go ahead. If not, then put the job in storage (a database is the first thing that springs to mind) and try again later. "Later" depends on your circumstances - whether it can wait until the next user-initiated event or if you want it to retry within n minutes, for example. In the latter case you might want to schedule a cron job to keep track of when to attempt a connection.

Either way, if and when the connection succeeds, you have the chance to go through the stored jobs and send them.