Newbie poster...
Alex Blewitt wrote:
From an administrator's PoV, it would be nicer if all configuration could be done via an admin console, and for the repository to be stored in a not-necessarily-human-readable form which was updated as the config was changed via the admin console (e.g. Web app)
While this may be a matter of some personal preference, I tend to like config files over an admin cosole/webapp. Being able to administer/maintain via a command line is imporant to me.
The big problems with XML files as I see them are:
o How would an XML file be treated if the server had to re-generate its config file (because administrator(s) made a remote change )?
o How would changes that a text editor made to an XML file be re-read by a config file?
When I was working on a wireless app server a couple of years ago, we always maintained application state via and XML file. Basically all our admin cosole was was a fancy way to retrieve the XML file the server/cluster was currently using, edit it, and push it back. We also had a command line utility that let you edit the XML files, then force the server to restart the application with the new config. It worked pretty well. We just persisted everything back to the filesystem on the servers when there was a change, and downed/re-inited the relevant systems in the application.
o Would you need to restart the server and/or dump the new config file to see the effect?
I should hope not. :) The system should be able to down/restart an app without the whole server bouncing.
Alex.
--c
