Save last 10 web service calls

Question

I have a SOAP web service and am trying to figure out how to save / log the last 10 requests for each user. Each user must send their user / pass in each request, so it is easy to find out from which request arose. With these last 10 requests saved, my goal is to create some kind of page that will allow them to log in with their credentials and view the raw request, the actual SOAP message, the http header information and all I can think of.

The thing is to allow people to fix problems with their connection, instead of contacting me every time they cannot connect, there are problems with formatting their request, etc.

My first thought was to store all of this information in memory in a hash table or something like that, but it can have scalability problems when we have hundreds / thousands of users who hit the web service.

We could use our database to store these requests. Instead of hitting the database each time, I may need to create some kind of “buffer” mechanism that will update the database only after the buffer gets to a certain number of requests. Is there an existing library or mechanism that will do this?

We cannot store these requests in the file system on the computer hosting the web service. Since these requests may potentially contain sensitive information, this is a business solution that I will need to work on.

Or maybe there is a better way to achieve what I'm trying to do?

Answer 1

I see two alternatives.

1.- Mix two approaches: create a hash table in memory and, when it reaches the limit (say 1000 queries), push them into the database. There is no need for a special library for this. Hastable is your memory buffer.

2. - Set up a completely different process to sniff requests and offer clients to download packet capture (or process and submit them themselves.) This may be more work, but it separates saving the request from your application. You could even transfer the sniffer to another machine if such a load was required.