[erlang-questions] What's the status of erl_com, the Erlang-t o-COM bridge?

[David Mitchell]

I'd LOVE to replace MQ and Tibco - about they only things they have in
their favor is "vendor support", and being already entrenched in the
environment.  I quite like the functionality of both, but trying to do
something with them that the vendors didn't consider (i.e. hook Erlang
to them) is painful.  For an open-source app, there would either be a
generic API (e.g. REST) that would be language independent, or I could
pull apart the source and extend it.

Actually, MQ has a "sort of like REST" API, but it's an optional extra
i.e. costs money.  It's not enough like REST to make it a no-brainer
though, and then there's the question of how it's gonna impact the
existing infrastructure since it has to run on the MQ server.

As far as the data distribution goes, I need to build a
"dashboard"-type Web page that I can use to see the state of all the
various interfaces.  COMET gives me the ability to have the server
update each interface's status as new info becomes available without
having the user refresh the Web page (at least, that's the theory -
whether it's gonna scale is another matter...).  Do you know of a way
I could duplicate that with XMPP and ejabberd?  I don't really want an
AJAX interface except as a last resort, as that's going to be a "pull"
interface; I'd really like a "push" interface if it's practical, so I
can get something approaching real-time updates.

Thanks for your response

Dave M.

2008/10/16 French, Mike <Mike.French@REDACTED>:
>
> How about using XMPP and ejabberd for the data distribution ?
> COMET over HTTP is always an unnatural contortion,
> but Jabber is pub/sub push by nature.
>
> Then you could always replace MQ and Tibco with XMPP later on :)
>
> Mike
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: erlang-questions-bounces@REDACTED
>> [mailto:erlang-questions-bounces@REDACTED]On Behalf Of
>> David Mitchell
>> Sent: 15 October 2008 21:34
>> To: erlang-questions@REDACTED
>> Subject: Re: [erlang-questions] What's the status of erl_com, the
>> Erlang-to-COM bridge?
>>
>>
>> My reason for choosing Erlang in the first place was for scalability -
>> I need to be able to read/write/monitor upwards of 1000 MQ and Tibco
>> queues simultaneously, and drive them all and present status plus
>> drill-down info from a central point via a Web interface.  I've got
>> access to lots of Intel servers (if necessary) to build this.  With
>> Erlang, the ease of scaling horizontally makes it relatively
>> straightforward to handle that quantity of interfaces (ignoring the
>> fact that they're MQ and Tibco specifically), and using Yaws would
>> mean that I won't have issues with scalability in data presentation.
>> Finally, and I haven't thought this next part through thoroughly yet,
>> I would also lean towards using COMET (not the COM interface project;
>> the Web push interface project) to push updates out to my Web clients.
>>
>> Finally the app is such that it needs to be 100% reliable during
>> extended periods of high load, and OTP gives me the capability to
>> build that in fairly easily.
>>
>> Bottom line is that I know Erlang would be a good fit (again, ignoring
>> the fact that the interfaces are MQ and Tibco), whereas I think it
>> would take me longer to produce a less-reliable solution in Java.
>>
>> Regards
>>
>> Dave M.
>>
>> 2008/10/15 Rapsey <rapsey@REDACTED>:
>> > I'm sure Java has what you need, so why not go through jinterface?
>> >
>> >
>> > Sergej
>> >
>> > On Wed, Oct 15, 2008 at 11:31 AM, Robert Raschke
>> <rtrlists@REDACTED>
>> > wrote:
>> >>
>> >> On Wed, Oct 15, 2008 at 5:52 AM, David Mitchell
>> <monch1962@REDACTED>
>> >> wrote:
>> >> > Thanks Jakob and Kenneth for your responses.
>> >> >
>> >> > I need to hook Erlang to a variety of external
>> applications (MQ, Tibco
>> >> > Rendezvous, Oracle), none of which have "native" Erlang
>> interfaces but
>> >> > all have COM interfaces available.  Comet looked like a good fit
>> >> > (assuming I ran Erlang on a Windows box), but based on
>> your comments
>> >> > I'll look elsewhere.  That probably means building a C
>> port for MQ and
>> >> > Tibco, and I may be able to get away with using ODBC for Oracle.
>> >> >
>> >> > If you need any votes of support to revive COMET within Ericsson,
>> >> > please let me know ;->
>> >>
>> >> If you don't want to use something like C#, then I can
>> recommend Lua
>> >> together with LuaCOM for interfacing to COM. I would guess
>> that it's
>> >> not very hard to wrap a COM interface with this and expose it to
>> >> Erlang through a port. Still, a little bit of work would
>> be required.
>> >>
>> >> Robby
>> >> _______________________________________________
>> >> erlang-questions mailing list
>> >> erlang-questions@REDACTED
>> >> http://www.erlang.org/mailman/listinfo/erlang-questions
>> >
>> >
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > erlang-questions mailing list
>> > erlang-questions@REDACTED
>> > http://www.erlang.org/mailman/listinfo/erlang-questions
>> >
>> _______________________________________________
>> erlang-questions mailing list
>> erlang-questions@REDACTED
>> http://www.erlang.org/mailman/listinfo/erlang-questions
>>
>
> Thales UK Ltd (Wells) DISCLAIMER: The information contained in this e-mail
> is confidential. It may also be legally privileged. It is intended only for
> the stated addressee(s) and access to it by any other person is
> unauthorised. If you are not an addressee, you must not disclose, copy,
> circulate or in any other way use or rely on the information contained in
> this e-mail. Such unauthorised use may be unlawful. We may monitor all
> e-mail communications through our networks. If you have received this e-mail
> in error, please inform us immediately on sender's telephone number above
> and delete it and all copies from your system. We accept no responsibility
> for changes to any e-mail which occur after it has been sent.  Attachments
> to this e-mail may contain software viruses which could damage your system.
> We therefore recommend you virus-check all attachments before opening.
> Thales UK Ltd. Registered Office: 2 Dashwood Lang Road, The Bourne Business
> Park, Addlestone, Weybridge, Surrey KT15 2NX Registered in England No.
> 868273
>