Using an HTTP Proxy Server

Network security imposes certain restrictions on what client applications are allowed to do:

• Applets can only communicate back to the host from which they were downloaded.
• Direct IP connections between a JDBC client and database are not allowed when a firewall is between the client and the database server.

The Informix HTTP proxy handles both of these problems. The proxy is a servlet that runs in the middle tier between a JDBC client and an Informix database server. The proxy extracts SQL requests from the JDBC client and transmits them to the database server. The client (the end user) is unaware of this middle tier.

The HTTP proxy feature is not part of the JDBC 2.0 specification.

Figure 1 illustrates how the proxy enables a connection to a database that is behind a firewall.

Figure 1. Connecting Through a Firewall