Long report

The answer in RoR for long processes is BackgrounDRb

http://backgroundrb.rubyforge.org/

Sorry I don't have more details. I haven't yet worked with this myself. Maybe someone else can fill in the gaps in my knowledge.

What I'm interested in would be that when you send the task to BackgrounDRb process and you request-response cycle ends, how do you then provided feedback to the using that the process is complete? Is it possible to use AJAX to poll the long process for it's status, or does the BackgroundDRb provide feedback in some form of callback mechanism?

I'm guessing the answers to these questions become obvious when working with BackgrounDRb, but I just don't have those answers for you at this time.