Re: Sharing a database - FTP or XML?

Jay Callicott wrote: > What's the best way to share a database feed with satellite sites that connect to a > "mother" site? Should I just FTP the database, or is there an XML solution out there > that's better. If so, are there PEAR packages out that can help? > > Jay If you are talking about mirroring data, it depends on the data. If this is public, non-sensitive data, then your best option may be a REST-based xml solution, however, if you only want it available to the mirrors, then ftps is your baby, but still do a pull model (have them ftps to your site, not the other way around where you connect to them - scalability is a serious issue). If you do REST, this has the advantage that mirrors need not all connect to you, but can also mirror a mirror, which is a lot more scalable. It is important that you centralize the list of trusted mirrors in this model, or you're asking for trouble. For an example of REST-based data and mirroring, take a look at how the PEAR installer does things in 1.4.x, specifically http://pear.php.net/rest/ and the channel.xml spec at http://pear.php.net/manual/en/guide.migrating.channels.xml.php Greg