[LINK] ACT vote article

[Chirgwin, Richard]

Bob,

Scuze me if this is a "D'oh!" question, but what's the process for e-mailing
to a database?

Richard Chirgwin

-----Original Message-----
From: Dr. Bob Jansen [mailto:Bob.Jansen@turtlelane.com.au]
Sent: Monday, 22 October 2001 10:09
To: link@www.anu.edu.au
Subject: Re: [LINK] ACT vote article


At 11:32 AM +1000 21/10/01, Adam Todd wrote:
>That is scary.  At even worst case, FEP web servers with a DMZ and only
>extremely restricted access to an SQL back end server or even a transaction
>based server farm ,would be the ideal solution if they insist on REAL
>TIME.  However, even a CRON job pulling "stats" every 5 minutes would be
>sufficient for a system that is likely to be so over loaded.  People go
>insane of "dynamic" data, but fail to realise that everyone access DYNAMIC
>data at the exact same time see the SAME result.  a Five minute lag isn't
>exactly a BAD thing.

We've had good results from some of our clients using email to submit 
data to a DB backend. Using Adam's scenario, the info isn't up to 
date in real time but lags by the time for an email to be sent, 
received by our email servers and processed into the database. The 
advantage of this de-coupling is that if the backend or any link in 
the chain goes down, data submission can continue as emails will just 
queue until the problems have been resolved and emails get through 
again. I'm not suggesting that this is necessarily suitable for 
online voting, etc, but when designing a web service, it's worth 
seriously looking at this issue of real-time dynamic data. The nice 
thing about this design is that its stable and well tested - emails 
always (or nearly always) get through OK.


bobj

Dr. Bob Jansen
Managing Director,
Turtle Lane Studios Pty Ltd,
Physical: 1 Turtle Lane, Erskineville, NSW 2043, AUSTRALIA
Postal: PO Box 26, Erskineville, NSW 2043, AUSTRALIA
Phone & Fax: +61-2-95 19 99 85
Mobile: 0414 297 448
Email: Bob.Jansen@turtlelane.com.au
WWW: http://www.turtlelane.com.au/

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