JADE Connectivity from the Internet

When using a Web service consumer or the JadeHTTPConnection class, the default communications protocol is the WinHTTP library. WinHTTP is more appropriate for server-type environments; WinINet is more appropriate for low-performance client situations.

The processing of requests from the Web server is handled as follows.

The jadehttp library file, supplied with JADE on the release medium and located on your Internet server, is directly called by the Web server for each HTML client request that is made. This library connects to a JADE client node by a named pipe or a TCP/IP connection.

The jadehttp library file sends the received request over the channel to the JADE application, which processes the request and then returns an HTML page for transmission to the HTML thin client user.
The InternetPipe or JadeInternetTCPIPConnection class enables JADE to establish a communications channel with another program. To communicate with the jadehttp library file, the JADE application creates an instance of the appropriate class, and then offers the named pipe or TCP/IP for opening.

When the library opens the other end of the channel, JADE waits for input from the library. When input arrives, JADE processes that input and then sends the reply back to the library. JADE then waits for more input.

As JADE asynchronously waits for input from the named pipe or TCP/IP, the JADE client node can perform other tasks when it is idle; for example, monitoring and displaying the system processing status.

Connections from the jadehttp module and JADE Web application can be over TCP/IP or a named pipe connection. JADE systems use the named pipe connection by default. For details about specifying that the HTML generation for Netscape and Mozilla browsers is similar to that for Internet Explorer, see the UseHTML4ForNetscape parameter in the [WebOptions] section of the JADE initialization file, in the JADE Initialization File Reference.

The main advantage of a TCP/IP connection over a named pipe connection is that the machine hosting IIS or Apache HTTP Server can be different from the machine that is running the JADE application, to provide greater security via firewalls. A TCP/IP connection is also slightly faster than a named pipe connection and an Apache HTTP Server cannot connect over a named pipe.

For details, see "Connecting to JADE Applications from Internet Information Server (IIS)", in Chapter 2 of the JADE Installation and Configuration Guide.

WinHTTP and WinINet are operating system libraries that perform lower-level network communications. WinINet proxy settings are set the same way as proxy settings for Internet Explorer (that is, by using the Internet Options dialog accessed from the Control Panel).

For details about setting Internet proxy settings, see Microsoft documentation. WinHTTP proxy settings are configured using the netsh.exe tool. To obtain help, specify the following command.

netsh winhttp set proxy help

See also the EnableWinHTTP and EnableWinINET parameters in the [JadeEnvironment] section of the JADE initialization file. If you set both parameters to true, WinHTTP is used in preference. If you set both parameters to false, the support of both protocols is disabled and a Web service consumer can use only the JADE Direct scheme; that is, jadehttp.tcp.