How does one perform a task in Rails that is not tied to a HTTP Request / Web Page? Examples include: Sending out mailings, generating reports, maintenance tasks, and fetching remote data. Similarly, is there a way to, within a request, register an action to be performed after the request is completed. (Why? To not hold back the web page, to avoid any client abort issues, and to avoid any server timeouts). Last, is there a way to share an object between requests? Or should it just be serialized to the DB and reloaded by each request that needs it. Thanks! PS Please cc me on all responses. PPS Does Rails address http://martinfowler.com/eaaCatalog/identityMap.html ? Or does it just rely that normally within one request this isn''t needed?