Re: Hosting a Large Number of Node Apps on the IBM i

Kelly,

Regarding the external reverse-proxy/load-balancers, I picture a
configuration something like:

dept-A.domain.com <==> ip-192.168.5.2:port-9011 (department-A, Node
instance 1)
dept-A.domain.com <==> ip-192.168.5.2:port-9012 (department-A, Node
instance 2)
dept-A.domain.com <==> ip-192.168.5.2:port-9013 (department-A, Node
instance 3)

dept-B.domain.com <==> ip-192.168.5.2:port-9021 (department-B, Node
instance 1)
dept-B.domain.com <==> ip-192.168.5.2:port-9022 (department-B, Node
instance 2)
dept-B.domain.com <==> ip-192.168.5.2:port-9023 (department-B, Node
instance 3)

dept-C.domain.com <==> ip-192.168.5.2:port-9031 (department-C, Node
instance 1)
dept-C.domain.com <==> ip-192.168.5.2:port-9032 (department-C, Node
instance 2)
dept-C.domain.com <==> ip-192.168.5.2:port-9033 (department-C, Node
instance 3)

Configuring 1 "load-balancer" and routing to 3 Node HTTP instances for each
Department (9 total Node instances).

Although that ensures scaling and fail-over support, one question is
whether the "applications" which are being run in those instances might
need to share session data with each other?

Once a request "hits" a Node HTTP instance, further routing needs to take
place:

/prepayment/credit-card/requests...
/prepayment/wire-transfer/requests...
/prepayment/re-date-orders/requests...
/prepayment/view/requests/...
...

That again raises the question about how effective Express.js or some other
framework might be at configuring and routing potentially long lists of
URLs to appropriate JavaScript routines? And how disruptive to users as
"restarts" are required when routing configurations change?

I'd rather not dive into how effective Java or PHP might be at "scaling",
"fail-over", "request-routing", "application deployment", support for
"multiple environments" (development, testing, production). You basically
end up talking about running multiple virtual machine instances, and in the
case of Java, hiring more people to manage the complexity (much like .Net).