[mapserver-users] mapserver architecture for multi-websites on several machines

[Claude Philipona]

We are starting a project using Mapserver (PHP/MapScript) for building a
cartographic server which could be used by different client web-sites on
different machines. The server will propose a large set of raster map from
1:25'000 to 1:1'000'000. The client web-sites will be able to use the central
mapserver to interactivly geocode any kind of information (points, lines,
surfaces) using an applet and to visualize and to navigate thru the obtained
geocoded objects.

Each site using Mapserver is totally independent should be able to integrate the
map directly (no frames).In this configuration we don't have a web borwser making
direct request to MapServer, but rather the web server machines would have to
make the cartogrphic request to the mapserver machine. This is a kind of wms.

My question: What is the best solution to implement this kind of architecture?
Has anybody already done such thing?

My ideas were to use WDDX (Web Distributed Data Exchange,
http://www.openwddx.org/faq/) to exchange the required parameters between the
mapserver box (coordinates of the click, shapes ON,...) and the webserver boxes
(url of the map image,...). So the Webserver (php enabled) would post a wddx file
(containing the serailzed parameter) to the MapServerPHP-MapScript. After
deserialization PHP/Mapscript will process the map request and return wddx file
(containing the url of the images and other important parameter).

Is it the way to go to get good performance? Is there a better way to do it?

Other question: I was palnning to start this development using directly Mapserver
3.5, providing that the system will not enter in production before november. Is
3.5 stable enough? Any timesacle for the official release?

Claude Philipona