How To Best Upload Data From Localhost to Server

[poddys]

We have a system written in PHP that runs on our iSeries.  A cut down version of the system exists on Localhost so that engineers out on the road with no internet connection can update reports, then upload these to the online system later.

 

My predecessor wrote these systems, and he was self-taught in PHP.  I am also self taught, but recognize that what he wrote is not very robust and when it fails (often due to timeouts) it's hard to resolve the problems, especially since our offline engineers are in China.

 

I am looking for advice on the best way to transfer data from Localhost to an online system.  The iSeries server is hidden from the outside world, so currently to upload data, the programs create a form containing the data, which is then auto-submitted to a program on the online system.

 

This works, however the engineers can also add photos to the offline reports.  These are currently uploaded within the same PHP script using FTP, but if the connection is slow or the photos are large, the script times out.

 

(1) Is there a better (hopefully simpler too) way of doing this, and

 

(2) Is there a way that the FTP uploads could be queued at all, so that they can be uploaded as a separate job.

 

Thanks in advance.