Re: Serious Use of PROXY module in commercial applications

[Dean Gaudet <dg...@arctic.org>]

I'm curious why you're not evaluating Squid <http://squid.nlanr.net/>.  To
be honest, that's what I recommend to folks setting up sites using inverse
proxying... unless they have specific requirements that Apache satisfies. 
Like when you're building a hybrid origin/proxy server Apache is obviously
the choice.  But when it's just a true proxy cache, squid is much better
in my opinion -- it's far more lightweight and scales to a larger number
of clients.  And if you're forced to use Solaris it will kick apache's
butt because it's a single process (multithreaded in their beta code). 

I'll forward your message to someone I know who is using Apache's proxy in
a setting like this. 

Dean

On Fri, 20 Mar 1998 George_Carrette@iacnet.com wrote:

> I'm interested in commiserating with people who are considering using
> the apache proxy module in commercial applications like ISP's which were
> mentioned in the message from Randy@Covalent.NET previously.
> 
> The issue/concern is that the apache proxy server doesn't seem to be 
> dominant in that "application space."
> 
> In particular I'm evaluating three proxy servers right now, Apache, Netscape 
> and Microsoft
> for the purpose of implementing a Reverse Proxy Server which will be a "virtual 
> remote web site"
> for Information Access Company web products, especially so that they appear to 
> be
> faster and more local to the user for international (non-US) customers.
> 
> To get a solution working with Apache our developer only had to comment out two 
> lines
> of code from mod_proxy, rebuild the server and do a little configuration work.
> 
> The thing will go to Quality Assurance and get some benchmarking soon.
> 
> Meanwhile I'll be evaluating "commercially supported product components"
> for feasability. Cost is not an issue. It just has to work.
> 
> Normally reverse proxy servers allow outsiders to get to sites behind a 
> firewall.
> 
> But in this case we are going to use Reverse Proxy to allow outsiders to get 
> ProxyPass
> action that goes through a back-end private-leased-bandwidth channel to our
> main web site via routes which are not advertised to the public.
> 
> Some content is locally cached. Currently ProxyPass does that, but I want to 
> figure out
> how to control it better so that it doesn't bother asking the IF-MODIFIED-SINCE 
> question
> more often than a few times a day on certain areas of content like /images.
> 
> This is a serious application where millions of dollars in revenue are at stake.
> Public announcements have already been made having to do with a current
> routing-based solution, such as:
> 
> TITLE: DIGITAL ISLAND AND IAC SIGN INFO DISTRIBUTION PACT 
> PUBLICATION: Online Product News, Feb 1, 1998 v17 i2
> 
> TITLE: IAC adopts Digital Island's Overnet for international database 
> distribution. 
> (Information Access Co.)(Brief Article) 
> PUBLICATION: Information Today, Feb 1998 v15 n2 p12(1)
> 
> It is possible that public announcements will be made about
> any improvements to this. 
> 
>