Dear R-helpers, I have been inquired about the possibility of developing a web distributed scoring system: a model is created in a central location, users fill a form in their browsers, and the central server calls this model and returns a YES/NO answer to them. I am tempted into using R for this assignment. I have used Rapache for similar tasks, but I am afraid that it is too of a novelty for many backward looking IT departments. For a number of reasons, a Java based infrastructure (tomcat, web services, etc.) would be much more palatable for them. My wishlist is as follows: * Minimal infrastructure changes in case of (statistical) model updates or changes. * Solid management of concurrence, so that simultaneous connections do not interfere with each other. * Maximum efficiency so that new connections do not require a fresh R startup. Any ideas on how to achieve this? Any documentation available? Best regards, Carlos J. Gil Bellosta http://www.datanalytics.com
R as a web service
2 messages · Carlos J. Gil Bellosta, Martin Morgan
Carlos J. Gil Bellosta wrote:
Dear R-helpers, I have been inquired about the possibility of developing a web distributed scoring system: a model is created in a central location, users fill a form in their browsers, and the central server calls this model and returns a YES/NO answer to them. I am tempted into using R for this assignment. I have used Rapache for similar tasks, but I am afraid that it is too of a novelty for many backward looking IT departments. For a number of reasons, a Java based infrastructure (tomcat, web services, etc.) would be much more palatable for them. My wishlist is as follows: * Minimal infrastructure changes in case of (statistical) model updates or changes. * Solid management of concurrence, so that simultaneous connections do not interfere with each other. * Maximum efficiency so that new connections do not require a fresh R startup. Any ideas on how to achieve this? Any documentation available?
Hi Carlos -- See RWebServices http://www.bioconductor.org/packages/bioc/html/RWebServices.html as one possible solution. This produces a Java-based SOAP front end for tomcat (probably good for the IT guys) with tasks dispatched to a series of java-embedded R 'workers' to handle concurrency (probably not so good for the IT guys, as this requires maintaining the infrastructure for the service / worker communication and for handling gracefully the demise of workers). The workers are persistent, and can have their R implementation changed independent of the web service (though that is not necessarily best practice). The relevant vignettes are 'Enabling packages as web services' and 'Installing and testing...'. This is in ongoing development, so use R-devel (and the appropriate RWebServices). Martin
Best regards, Carlos J. Gil Bellosta http://www.datanalytics.com
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Martin Morgan Computational Biology / Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center 1100 Fairview Ave. N. PO Box 19024 Seattle, WA 98109 Location: Arnold Building M1 B861 Phone: (206) 667-2793