From: John Baylor <john.baylor@...>
Date: 2006-10-26T07:11:11+09:00
Subject: Re: Is anyone using Ruby for 24/7 financial applications?

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Many thanks for all the responses - good to know for the next time it comes
up.  For this time... sigh - java won out for non-technical reasons (lack of
other developers, experience in the enterprise, blah blah blah).

I've just ordered Bruce Tate's book "From Java to Ruby: Things Every Manager
Should Know" (Pragmatic Programmers) that may assist the process in the
future.

thanks again!
JB

On 10/24/06, Guido Sohne < guido@sohne.net> wrote:
>
> On 10/19/06, John Baylor < john.baylor@gmail.com> wrote:
> > I know a lot of people are using ruby on rails for web apps, usually
> with
> > Apache as the underlying app, but I don't know of anyone using ruby
> itself
> > for a 24/7 application.  Yes, some people are using webrick as their web
>
> > server but they don't necessarily lose $$$ if their personal web site
> goes
> > down.
>
> I wrote several applications using Rails that are not web apps per se.
> Rails is mostly used as a back end permitting rapid prototyping /
> development and very quick domain modeling leveraging ActiveRecord
> especially.
>
> a) Check bank balance via SMS
>
> User sends an SMS to a number attached to a GSM modem. Uses smstools
> to retrieve the message, and execute a Ruby shell script that parses
> the message and builds an HTTP GET request to transmit that
> information to the Rails application. The application then does a
> telnet into a legacy banking application (Temenos Globus, running on a
> variant of the Pick database system called UniVerse) and does screen
> scraping and such to login, query the balance and parse the results.
> Once the information is retrieved, it uses a web based sms service to
> transmit the results back to the user. Functionality to request new
> cheque books, to retrieve the last N transactions on the account etc
> also included. Also uses drb to move some of the lengthy operations
> offline (such as transmitting the sms back).
>
> b) Check bank balance via touch tone telephone
>
> User dials a number which is handled by the Asterisk PBX software.
> Uses voice synthesis software (Loquendo TTS engine, high quality
> voices) to issue the voice prompts and to deliver the results in voice
> format. Uses RAGI (ruby asterisk gateway interface) to handle the
> incoming calls and to orchestrate the transaction. Uses
> Rails/ActiveRecord as above, same infrastructure, different interface.
>
> c) User verification via telephone call back
>
> User initiates a transaction via web or via SMS and the system calls
> the user back and asks him/her to authenticate using a PIN. Works only
> from a mobile phone registered to the system and associated with that
> user to achieve two factor authentication (what you have + what you
> know). Built with RAGI + Rails + Asterisk.
>
> d) Back end for point of sale handheld device applications
>
> Merchant uses a GSM handheld point of sale device to perform various
> transactions such as selling mobile topups, internet access (prepaid),
> school fee payment etc. UI is on the point of sale device, fulfillment
> / business logic is handled remotely with a rails application. HTTP
> GET is used to transmit parameters to the back end and the document
> returned is a parseable response (JSON encoded). Secured by using
> HTTPS, possible to use HTTPS certificates to ensure that each device
> is uniquely identifiable and that a particular device can be disabled
> remotely in case of fraud etc. POS application written in Lua / C.
> GPRS / SMS message used as the network (data transmission) layer.
>
> > I'm trying to talk my company into using ruby in a remote environment (a
>
> > merchant's store) where it has to be solidly up 24/7 or the merchant
> will
> > stop using our product.  We should be able to SSH to the box if we need
> to
> > but we'd rather not need to.  While I have confidence that ruby can run
> in
> > that environment, management would like to hear that someone else is
> already
> > using it for a similar purpose.  Are they?
>
> Rails has been very, very stable for this purpose. Ran into a few
> problems only using native extension written in C such as Ferret which
> caused some crashes. Other problems came not from Ruby but from
> interfacing with the external systems, such as having a server running
> the banking software restarting, or hanging, and having to recover
> from that situation.  The best solution was to queue up messages in a
> database table, and flag / purge them depending on whether they failed
> or succeeded. A background or intermittent task then processes failed
> attempts and informs the user if necessary.
>
> I recommend sticking to pure Ruby if you want to have stability. Some
> problems are with the Ruby application server going down (such as
> Mongrel) but can be solved with some effort / luck / catching
> exceptions properly, or using lighttpd and scripts to monitor or
> restart the application when necessary.
>
> Combined with capistrano for management of the remote applications,
> SSH works very well for deploying / management and very much automated
> with capistrano. With stability, you'll need to go through a test
> period where you can shake out the little bugs that are inevitable.
>
> -- G.
>
>

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