Patrick McManus wrote:
>
> In a previous episode Henrik Nordstrom said...
> ::
>
> :: My main problem with basing a definition of reverse proxy or server-side
> :: proxy on this is that TCP hijacking proxies see server requests while
> :: there is conceptually nothing being server-side or reverse with a TCP
> :: hijacking proxy. The thing being reverse in a revese proxy or
> :: server-side in a server-side cache is how and where it is used, not the
> :: tiny details of the protocol parsing in performs. The term is a
> :: functional description when you discuss network topology and firewalling
> :: with a sites network or IS managers
>
> I fully agree.. to elaborate:
>
> server side proxies are not really proxies at all.. they're just
> origin servers typically implemented that way so clustered hardware
> can be used (yielding fault tolerance, division of labor, and things
> like filesystem optimizations).. but they are origin servers without a
> doubt.. the fact that they fufill some of their requests using HTTP or
> ICP or somesuch is not really more germane than if they fufilled them
> by running ODBC programs; they are authoritative for the URLs as far
> as the client is concerned how they fufill them is a matter of server
> design.
>
> the request presented to them is addressed to them.. and all the data
> belongs to the same administrative domain, they are not generic and as
> such have no expiration or privacy issues beyond that of normal origin
> servers... issues such as the inclusion of cache-control in the
> request are not really relevant.. whereas they certainly are with
> client side proxies.. in my mind a reverse proxy could choose to serve
> a request with cache-control: no-cache out of it's cache because it is
> authoritative for that resource..
>
> the sometimes used term accelerator seems to be a much better piece of
> terminology for this element.
So it sounds like this is just a server, period.
I wouldn't even glorify it with the term "accelerator" - that
speaks to the 'internal' architecture of the server, and
is, as noted above, not germane.
Joe
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Nov 18 2004 - 11:21:27 MST