QSS principal Duane Percox said the new version of the server provides “stateful” transaction processing over the Web, instead of the stateless transactions more typical of the Apache/iX or Open Market servers.

The server, which Percox was calling QWEBS NG, will let an HP 3000 system host more than one domain without using Posix and HFS capabilities. The product also uses named server pools, a feature that provides customized performance for different types of Web transactions.

“Imagine if you could fire up different sets of servers for different purposes,” Percox said. “Even though each server pool is still a copy of the Web server, you can run the copy with options allowing it to be optimized for serving documents, images, or doing CGI. The listener will direct the incoming Web transaction to the appropriate pool, based on what it finds in the HTTP transaction.”

The named server pools feature allows HP 3000 sites running intranets to manage resources more effectively to service various requests. The server can cache documents as short mapped files, so Webmasters can take frequently accessed images and HTML files as cached MPE mapped files, “so you can get them right out of memory,” Percox said.

Managers can employ QWEBS NG initialization routines triggered from a server pool to pre-open databases and files, passing those items’ handles on to scripts. The technique brings top performance to applications that query IMAGE databases, for example.

QSS, which sells MPE/iX administrative and student records software for K-12 districts and community colleges, has integrated a COBOL preprocessor from its Attendance/WEB product into the QWEBS NG server. Attendance/WEB is an HP 3000 application that allows for taking attendance via a Web page. The preprocessor takes parameters and formats them for use in COBOL applications, “so you wouldn’t have to change a COBOL program’s ACCEPT statements,” Percox said.

Percox has also developed Web Foundation, a series of subroutines and programs that works with QWEBS NG to create high performance Web transaction processing. “I’ve created an architecture that allows you to build stateful Web transaction processing,” Percox said. Stateful processing doesn’t rely on CGI processes, high-overhead processes which start up and shut down for each request. Instead, the stateful processing in QWEBS NG uses an application server for each client, and as the request comes in message files write requests to the server, which returns the results.

“It means the server doesn’t have to do an initialization every time you get a transaction,” Percox said. “A COBOL programmer can call these routines from a program.” Web Foundation means programs write directly to sockets, “and the programs don’t have to be anywhere near the Web server. The server can maintain a continuous transaction when a program registers with a simple call of the routines.

“This is an application framework that allows you to create high performance Web transaction processing — without having to worry about the Web architecture part of it,” Percox said.
Web Foundation was inspired by the same basic data design of the HP 3000, he added — an easy-to-call database management system and a built-in screen handler. The design also lets 3000 shops bypass ODBC overhead. “If you’re got IMAGE databases, you can do native IMAGE calls, instead of being stuck with relational database speed,” Percox said.

QWEBS NG sells for $495 per HP 3000, with subsequent licenses at $250 each. Support is free for the first year and $95 yearly thereafter.