Corion,
I am responsible for only one piece in the pipeline. The piece I described. The process that will be filling my work queue and the process whose work queue I will be filling is beyond my control. I do have a bit of say as to how my work queue gets filled just as I have to conform to the requirements of the work queue I will be filling.

My preliminary tests and estimated rate of incoming jobs leads me to believe single threaded serial processing will be insufficient. That isn't to say I have missed something where I could improve efficiency, but I really do want to have my options open.

I like the simplicity of 1 file per job and using directories as queues. I am not sure if there will be a "reporting" requirement in the future, but I can bet if I don't plan for it there will be. That leaves a couple of options as I see it:

• Write a transaction log
• Use a database where the stats can be constructed (time in, time out, number of attempts, etc)

Any code snippets will be appreciated. Thanks again.
L~R