[Sqlrelay-discussion] Fix Firewall problem

[Dave S. <dsu...@co...>]

I have an interesting situation that I'm looking for a solution.  I'm  
wondering if SQLRealy will be able to solve my problem.  Please let  
me know what you think.

I have a client with the following setup.
1) Back end database running Oracle 9i - running on Solaris
2) 4 front end web servers running Linux RedHat Enterprise, Apache,  
PHP 4, etc...
3) between the database server and the web servers is a firewall

Now - the problem
The firewall is setup in such a way that it will disconnect idle  
connections between the web server and oracle server after 30  
minutes.  For efficiency reasons the connection created from PHP to  
Oracle is a persistent connection (oci_pconnect).

The obvious solution is to get rid of the firewall or at least  
reconfigure it to not drop these connections.  I have been asking for  
this for about 2 years now and my client is not willing to make this  
change for whatever reason.  But, now they are asking me to look into  
other solutions.

SQLRelay was suggested to me as a possible solution and while it  
looks like it might work.  It looks like it might silently reconnect  
the connection to Oracle if the firewall has decided to drop the  
connection.  I'm just trying to see if anyone has any sort of  
experience of this or a similar situation and can let me know if they  
have had success in solving such a situation.

The real test is of course to give it a try and see.  But, before I  
go through the setup and modifying code to use SQLRelay, I was hoping  
for some more info from other users.

Thanks,

Dave Sugar
dsu...@co...