Can I use LAMP + AJAX for a (almost) real-time system?
I have a current system that is built as a Windows application and performs certain tasks in very close to reality time. There are nodes on the network that communicate with our custom server, report status, and send and receive commands.
We want to move to a web-deployed platform. Nodes, say 60-100 of them, need to communicate with the server and render the client quickly. I am talking milliseconds, not seconds. Network connection - LAN / 100mbit or gigabit, with reliable fast client-to-server connection. The communication node is also small and it is already being sent as XML messages that are not large in size and do not have a huge amount.
Our systems architect is confident and assures us that this can be done using LAMP + AJAX. I have personally been involved with similar systems before, and I am skeptical about the assurance of near real-time message delivery.
To test my common sense am I wrong? Can this be done (well) with LAMP or any similar language? (Not Java, I know a running Java applet can do this).
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If you are talking about a real-time application such as a messenger rather than real-time, then this can be done. This method is called "long-poll" or comet and has been used successfully by several major web launchers ( Meebo , for example).
The HTML 5 spec also includes a built-in messaging API that should really push these techniques into the mainstream as it is implemented in the next generation of browsers (and some of the current generation).
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The AJAX part of this is fine. Products like Lightstreamer and other Comet (Http server push) servers can provide real-time communication.
The LAMP part of this equation worries me. For high performance, you will probably need a custom tail end. Parts of LA are lovely. The needs of your application can force you to revisit MP.
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