[OpenLayers-Users] Communicating and Coordinating Maps Among Several Servers

[Bill Thoen]

This is omewhat off-topic, but the getting the end result involves 
OpenLayers at both ends, so I thought I'd try here first and see if 
anyone has some good ideas or "best practices" advice they could share.

In a nutshell, I've got a map server that displays maps using MapServer 
and OpenLayers and I have a large set of LIDAR elevation points. Also, I 
have a colleague who is building a SAS application that produces DEM 
files (and shaded relief, line of sight, ridgeline, 3D scenes and other 
digital 3D map products and map layers) from XYZ points. What we are 
wondering is what is the best way to design a system or a protocol 
whereby my system would take a client-defined rectangle and 
automatically send the XYZ point data and SRS to his server and get back 
one or more of these digital 3D products?

Would this be done best by first sending a data file via  FTP to his 
system and then issue an OpenLayers.loadURL()  call with instructions as 
to what's wanted and the file name, then have it do its thing and send 
back a response with the necessary info that would allow my app to pick 
up the resulting file and display it in a map window? Does this make 
sense or am I barking up the wrong tree?

I realize that this would not likely be an interactive process from the 
user's point of view, and it would be acceptable for the processing to 
be an overnight thing, but the fly in the ointment here is that the 
source data does not exist on the machine that is doing the heavy data 
crunching and so it has to be transferred first. I'm looking for ideas 
as how best to transfer a data set from machine to machine and 
coordinate it with a request for performing some service with it. We 
also want to this in as flexible a manner as possible, so we want to 
avoid platform-specific protocols.

So does anyone have some suggestions as to what the best way to do this 
is, or where I could go to learn more about doing something like this?

TIA,
- Bill Thoen