Step 2 - Defining the TCP transport

This section describes the steps to define a TCP transport using the IP address of the computer where the TCP Receiver Client resides.

The TCP protocol is included with the Enterprise Gateway products. Other protocols such as relational databases and message queuing systems are turned on using a license.

A TCP transport represents the TCP connection to the partner enterprise application.

Before you begin to create a TCP transport, the following is assumed:

  • The TCP Receiver Client program is running on your local computer.
  • The Workbench is started and you have logged on.

Example TCP transport

For this example, the TCP Receiver Client program on your local computer is the partner enterprise application.

  1. From the Workbench left pane, expand the node that where you want to define the TCP transport.
  2. Expand Enterprise, right-click the Transports icon to display its pop-up menu, and then select New.
    The Transport window appears.
  3. In the Name parameter, enter MyTCPTransport. This will be the unique name for the transport. You will not be able to type invalid characters. For example, spaces are not allowed. You will not be able to insert a space in the name.
  4. Use the Type parameter drop down list to select TCP.
  5. In the Host parameter, enter the IP address or host name of the computer where you want the messages sent. For this example, this is the IP address where the TCP Receiver Client program is running.
  6. In the Port parameter, enter the port number of the computer where you want the messages sent. For this example, use the port number 4444.
  7. In Mode box, accept the default connection-oriented. For more information on the TCP Transport and its parameters, see TCP transport.
  8. Select the Load transport at initialization check box to have the transport connect to the host when the node starts up.
  9. Make sure the Include header in payload check box is selected. This check box is selected to allow the TCP application to receive a 8-byte header as part of the data. The data, or payload, that is sent by the TCP transport will begin with an 8-byte header. The first 4-bytes will be the length of the data (not including the 8-byte header), and the next 4 bytes are set to zero and reserved for future use

The Transport window also provides two other tabs.

Adding timeout values

The Timeout tab provides values that affect connection and execution times.
Accept the default value for each Timeout parameter.
The Connection timeout parameter defaults to 10 seconds and specifies the length of time the system will try to connect to a target computer (where the partner TCP program is running). If the connection is not made in the specified time period, an error message is sent to the exception log.
The Execution timeout parameter defaults to 5 seconds and specifies the amount of time the Transaction Server component should wait (once the connection is made) for a TCP transaction to complete. The time value should be the outer limit for how long you expect a typical transaction to take using a transport.

Creating custom payloads

The Custom Payloads tab lets you specify a predefined Java application program to use for a custom payload format.

When you select Allow Custom Payloads check box to enable a TCP transport to use a custom payload, you must specify the name of the jar file and class name.
We will not not use the custom payload feature for this example.

For more information on custom payloads, see Custom Payloads tab.

Validating and saving the transport

Now that you have entered an appropriate value for each parameter, you must validate the connection, and then save your work.

  1. From the bottom of the Transport window, click Validate.
    The enterprise connectivity feature tests the connection to the partner application using the IP address and port.
  2. A message will tell you whether or not the validation was successful. Click OK.
  3. If no errors are received, click Save.

The new transport definition is saved to the node and listed on the Transports tab.

The next step is to define the transport map.