Staged HTTP > Overview of staged HTTP

Overview of staged HTTP

The staged HTTP transport provides a secure way to receive messages from partners without having to change firewall configurations. You can use this transport after deploying the staged HTTP servlet on a web server in your DMZ. You also must add staged HTTP as an inbound transport in your community.

Staged HTTP message handling of a document sent by a partner.

The above figure shows how this transport works, and the following describes the process.

  1. Your partner sends a document to the web server using a standard message protocol (for example, AS2). The staged HTTP servlet writes the file to disk pending retrieval by Activator. This provides failover protection.
  2. At the usual polling interval, Activator polls the web server and retrieves the document with a GET method. This is the default manner for picking up documents. Alternately, you can configure the staged HTTP servlet to forward the incoming message to Activator immediately. This bypasses the polling interval, allowing faster throughput, but opens a port into your trusted network. (See File forwarding to bypass polling.)
  3. Activator sends a receipt to acknowledge receiving the document. The receipt can be sent synchronously over the same connection as the inbound message or asynchronously based on message protocol configuration.

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