BackgrounDRb is a Ruby job server and scheduler. Its main intent is to be used with Ruby on Rails applications for offloading long-running tasks. Since a Rails application blocks while serving a request it is best to move long-running tasks off into a background process that is divorced from http request/response cycle.
The newest release of BackgrounDRb is also modular and can be used without Rails so that any Ruby program or framework can use it. For more information, configuration, and in-depth usage examples, see the BackgrounDRB Homepage.
Author: Ezra Zygmuntowicz, Hemant Kumar
Installation:
http://backgroundrb.rubyforge.org/