RE: Bypassing WAM

[John Dillon <JDillon@xxxxxxxxxx>]

John,

This way of bypassing WAM for on-campus users sounds very interesting.  What
motivated you to do this?  And, can you say how difficult it might be to
implement for folks like myself who know almost nothing about php?

We're interested b/c it appears that links via proxy rewrite make ref
database interaction speeds slower.

Thanks,

John D.


PS the longer story:

Very recently we started using the re-written URL link for our ON-campus
users, so that we are presenting 1 URL link no matter where users are.  So
now all traffic to databases (from off and on campus) is going through our
III server.  However, almost immediately we've noticed that the interaction
speed with databases is subtley slower.  Some of the databases are a long
5-10 seconds slower at retrieving a search, compared to the same on-campus
PC using a direct link to the vendor.  So far another database, Soc.
Abstracts via CSA, is more like 30+ seconds slower when following the
rewritten URL thru III.

We're at Phase2 and I'm assuming the relative slowness is simply due to the
increased load on our III server, and III processing time of the URLs.
(This, even though our DS10 is only about 2 years old and has a gig of RAM.)

We're curious if others have found or can demonstrate the same results, or
what other considerations there might be in bypassing WAM for local users,
notwithstanding the loss of III statistics.  -- John D.

John Dillon                        jdillon@xxxxxxxxxx
Tech. Srvces-Systems Msgr. / Assnt. Librarian
Geisel Library
Saint Anselm College    http://www.anselm.edu
100 Saint Anselm Drive      Fax: (603) 641-7345
Manchester, NH 03012        Ph: (603) 641-7349



-----Original Message-----
From: Rutherford, John (Library) [mailto:Rutherford@xxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Wednesday, September 24, 2003 9:34 AM
To: innopac@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: Bypassing WAM


We do that by listing our eresources on
html pages generated by php scripts. The
script checks the users ip address and if
it is oncampus it writes the direct url, if
off-campus it writes the proxy format.

We store the url in a simple database record
broken down into two fields (host and any parameters),
then write the address in one of the two formats.
Of course you lose that statistics generated through
wam when you do this.

John Rutherford
Conn State Univ.

-----Original Message-----
From: Bernadette Maria Houghton [mailto:bhoughto@xxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Monday, September 22, 2003 8:05 PM
To: innopac@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Bypassing WAM


Our library is currently in the process of setting up WAM, and I'm looking 
into whether it is possible to bypass the proxy for oncampus users, to 
reduce the load on the server (and also our  bandwidth costs!).

I've been digging deep into the archives and Innovative documentation and 
have been left with the impression that it can't be done via WAM itself. 
There appear to be two alternative solutions -

* set up separate links for on- and off-campus users in each bib record/web 
page
* create dynamic web pages to read the user's IP and present the 
appropriate on- or off-campus link.

Am I reading things correctly, or is there another way to do this?

Regards

Bernadette


**************************************
Bernadette Houghton
Information Systems Coordinator
Library
Waterfront Campus
Deakin University
Geelong, Victoria

email bhoughton@xxxxxxxxxx

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