how to handle multiple types of data input

I have the need to communicate via IP to a vendor, handling multiple transactions via a single socket connection while also looking at a data queue for the responses from our data queue transaction processors.

I have achieved this using two jobs, the socket server using select, and a second job that waits at data queue and post the queue entries via a socket connection to the socket server program. I want to do this with one job though.

How can I have one job that waits at a socket and data queue at the same time? Is it possible?

The way our authorization system works is we have multiple communication programs that talk via ASYNC, SDLC, HTTP, JAVA and now direct TCP/IP. Each com program puts the received transaction into a data queue and then waits for the response to appear in a second keyed data queue. Works well for the: connect - send - receive -disconnect nature of the Point of Sale terminals. We have multiple jobs running the same program all waiting at data queue to process the incoming transaction. Data queues are great for multiprocessing.

Now I have a processor that will take multiple simultaneous POS connections and send them to me, down the same connection without waiting for the response from the first. How do I hand them off to a data queue and wait for the response without holding up the TCP side?

Do I already have the correct solution using two jobs or can this be done in one multi-threaded job?

--
Chris Bipes
Director of Information Services
CrossCheck, Inc.