I'm working on a project in which I have to develop a simple PHP based web module from where the user (admins) can send SMS messages (Followup) to students, as for the sake of advertisement and other needs.
The SMS API is very simple and I just need to send a GET request to a Cross Origin Domain along with the phone number and message.
I tested it with the file_get_contents("sms_api_url?credentials"); and it works fine.
What worries me is that the SMS will be sent to TONS of numbers and so I have to send the request multiple times using a loop, which will take a lot of time and I think will be too much resource consuming. Also the max execution time for PHP is set to 30 seconds which I don't want to change.
I thought to use the Client side JavaScript for sending cross origin request in a loop so that it wont affect my server but that wouldn't be secure as it would reveal the API credentials.
What Technology should I use to accomplish my goals? and send tons of get request efficiently?
To send as many network requests as needed in less than 30 seconds are two requirements that kind of contradict themselves. Also, raw "efficiency" can just mean squeeze every single resource in the server, which not may be desirable.
Said that, I think the key points are:
I may be wrong but, as far as I know, there're only two ways to prevent a non-authorised party from consuming a web service: private credentials and IP filtering. None are possible in browser-based JavaScript.
Don't make a human being stare in front of the computer until a task of this kind completes. There's absolutely no need to and it can even cause the task to abort.
If you need to send the same text to different recipients, find out whether the SMS provider has an API that allows to do it in a single API request. Large batch deliveries get one or two orders of magnitude harder when this feature is not available.
In short you need: