Proxying HTTP (REST) calls

[Solomon Duskis <sd...@gmail.com>]

We have a whole bunch of distributed HTTP REST services, XML/JSon oriented
APIs (all running on tomcat 5.5) with slightly different usage nuances.  We
now have to front those services.  The plan is to do forward urls like
/proxy/<prefix>/<remoteUrl>. to <remote server>/<remote url>.  Beyond
proxying, this new app will receive common security headers and map them to
service specific strategies.  We'll need some kind of persistent store and
some logic which we'd prefer to write in Java, which is why we want to use
Tomcat rather than using some other proxying alternatives.

What's the best way to do this with Tomcat?  Are there tomcat versions that
will help with performance/features?

-Solomon Duskis