Scenarios for the Web Gateway
Use the WebSphere® MQ Managed File Transfer Web Gateway to transfer files to WebSphere MQ Managed File Transfer agents and retrieve the status of transfers using an HTTP client.
The Web Gateway is useful if you have files on a system where you
do not want to run an agent but where you can use an HTTP client.
For example, you can use the Web Gateway for the following tasks:
- Sending files to a WebSphere MQ Managed File Transfer agent from a web page
- Monitoring the status of transfers from a web page
- Sending files from a portable device that is not capable of running the WebSphere MQ Managed File Transfer infrastructure but has HTTP capabilities
- Sending files from an operating system that the WebSphere MQ Managed File Transfer agent is not supported on
Uploading a file using the Web Gateway
You can upload a file to the Web Gateway using an HTTP client.
The application server that is hosting the Web Gateway application
receives the HTTP request and the file is temporarily stored until
the web agent starts to transfer it. The web agent transfers the file
to the agent that was named as the destination agent in the original
transfer request. As shown in Figure 1, there is no need for the HTTP
client that submitted the transfer request to have an agent installed.
The destination system must have an agent installed, and the system
hosting the Web Gateway application must have a web agent installed.
Downloading a file from a file space
You can use the Web Gateway to make files available to users
in file spaces. A file space is a reserved area of file storage that
is associated with a Web Gateway user. Use an agent to transfer a
file to the Web Gateway. A web agent on the same system as the Web
Gateway application transfers the file to the file space that you
specified in the transfer request. A user who owns a file space can
download files at their own convenience, and they do not need an agent
or other IBM® WebSphere MQ
Managed File Transfer infrastructure to download the file.
How to use the Web Gateway
WebSphere MQ Managed File Transfer provides an administrative console. You can use the administrative console to create file spaces, modify the set of users who can access a file space, and map users to IBM WebSphere MQ Message Descriptor (MQMD) user IDs. For more information about using the administrative console, see Administering the WebSphere MQ Managed File Transfer Service Web Gateway.
If you prefer,
you can program directly to the application programming interface
(API) that is provided with the Web Gateway to build a customized
application. For more information, see Web Gateway API reference and Web Gateway administration API reference. There are three principal ways
of building an application to work with this API. These are:
- Web application
- You can write a set of web pages or a web application, which uses Web Gateway API functions to perform the file-related part of its function. A sample application is shipped with the Web Gateway, which demonstrates one way of doing this. For more information, see Sample web page.
- Client application
- You can write a program using a language such as Perl, Ruby, or Python that runs on client systems and communicates with WebSphere MQ Managed File Transfer by using Web Gateway API functions. Nearly all programming languages have HTTP facilities available. The benefit of this approach is that you can interact with WebSphere MQ Managed File Transfer from platforms where the WebSphere MQ Managed File Transfer agent cannot be deployed.
- System integration
- This approach uses the same technology as the client application option, but integrates different systems in the datacenter. HTTP provides a common denominator for communication between disparate tools and systems.