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Heiko Tappe · Guest

Hi folks,

I need some advice for the following problem.
I already have some web application (java, tomcat, struts, hibernate,
firebird).
And I already have some quite complex client/server win32 application
(delphi, firebird/oracle).
A service (also written in delphi and accessing the client/server-db)
transfers data from and to the web database via VPN
from time to time. So all communication between the client/server app and
the web app is via the databases.
So far so good.

Now the problem came up that some client/server functionality is also needed
in the web application.
Of course I do not want to do all that stuff again in java on the web side.
So I could use the web db to communicate with the client/server application.
But that would be to slow, as I had
to wait for the next communication cycle of the service mentioned above.

So I think I should ask my client/server app directly. Write another service
that listens on some channel for incoming requests,
execute them and send the answer back to the sender.
Because I'd like to have some flexible design for this, can anybody give
some advice for this kind of problem?
I was thinking of some xml-formats for sending requests and responses
(errors?).
Is for example SOAP something I should look at? Or what else can help to
solve that problem?

--Heiko

Khari Villela · Guest

Sounds sort of similar to a project I am working on now. I have a lot of
back end infrastructure (among which is a master database and associated
data services) written in .NET. My client application is a Win32
application that will need to access the master database periodically.
The only access to this database is through the web services. I have
created a webservice that allows the client to submit requests / retrieve
data from the master database. The web service of course communications
via XML and SOAP, but most of this is hidden behind the delphi
implementation objects.

So, without going into too many specific, largely because I dont really
have enough info on your project, I believe web services will do what you
want them to do. The benefit of using webservices is that they can be
written in any language at all and consumed by any other language.
(.NET->Win32, Win32->Java, etc.). Once you set up the interface classes,
they are really rather painless to use as well.

khariV

On Wed, 21 Sep 2005 11:24:40 -0400, Heiko Tappe <tappe (AT) transdata (DOT) net>
wrote: