>>Wow Michel... you make it sound so scary :)
>>I do need to incorporate real-time connections to servers and unix boxes that dump data into my warehouse app so I guess I'm looking i the right direction. George's answer plus yours plus what my Networking guru here is telling me is starting to give me a better understanding of what I'm looking at with this Catalyst product.
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>Are you sure you really need a real connection for that?
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I think so. I need to perform these connections either on the fly if a certain error is encountered when a method is running. Or with the FTP thing I'm looking to create a software utility to run at night that goes out across the country, via our own private enterprise network, to 7 seven different Unix boxes and transfers files to my database server.

>In my case, to establish a robust protocols, I had to establish 3 sockets per connection. One slave socket, one intelligent and one for the connection. However, it depend on what your application will do. In my case, while someone download messages for example, it may happen that the server decide to execute something on the client side (see the power of socket), so I need to have something listening for those requests as well. Yes, power in the sense that a server might decide to run something on the client application without having the client application requesting a transaction. Also, for this installation, you need to develop a client and a server application. So, more work here. :)

Wow... that is alot of power. But my data warehousing app isnt a web application. Eventually I'll probably do a remote user interface for Intranet use. (or I'll sub that job out while I learn SQL Server) But for now I'm just designing a monster network application for my MIS Department to use. Thank you, you really helped me understand this whole socket deal.

=D) Rox