You should definitely check out the following Railscasts:
- http://railscasts.com/episodes/127-rake-in-background
- http://railscasts.com/episodes/128-starling-and-workling
- http://railscasts.com/episodes/129-custom-daemon
- http://railscasts.com/episodes/366-sidekiq
They explain how to run background processes in Rails in every possible way (with or without a queue …)