I have been looking into ways in which to improve the dissemination of application configuration data. Specifically to make the configuration data available to the application in realtime and in a granular form, as opposed to the current bulk delivery mechanism, i.e. configuration files. There were attempts in the past to do this, utilizing proprietary provisioning protocols running over XML-RPC, but the results fell short of the intended goals. So now I am looking at a simpler and more direct approach, namely, to have the applications access the configuration data directly, via the configuration database.
In order to achieve the objective of realtime and granular dissemination, the database would utilize the postgreSQL Listen / Notify mechanism, in conjunction with table modification triggers. The application would then subscribe, i.e. Listen, for relevant database tables modification notifications. In response to the received notifications, the application would then query the database directly for the updated configuration. No more waiting for configuration files to be created / replicated and no more application restarts. How the application accesses the database records would be based upon the specific needs of the application and the complexity of the associated configuration data, but would most likely be through simple SQL queries, O/R mapping middleware or some combination of both. For mission critical applications, a local configuration cache, in the form of a properties or XML file, could be maintained. This would allow the application to start up in the absence of database connectivity, an approach that is already employed by some applications. Any thoughts? -Mardy _______________________________________________ sipx-dev mailing list [email protected] List Archive: http://list.sipfoundry.org/archive/sipx-dev Unsubscribe: http://list.sipfoundry.org/mailman/listinfo/sipx-dev sipXecs IP PBX -- http://www.sipfoundry.org/
