Remoting or web services aaarrgghh

[venerable bede]

I have a big problemo.
I need to develop a windows application which places the location of a document file onto MSMQ onto a remote server. I could do this with a web service.

The problem is that a server side component monitoring MSMQ then needs to grab the document from the client machine and copy it into a folder on the server.

How the hell would I achieve this ?
I can only rely on http and port 80.

[mendhak]

You could send your file as a stream to the web service. Is that what you meant?

[venerable bede]

I think I'm going about this in the wrong manner.

The problem I have Mendhak is that the files that the client software needs to send to the server can be up to 2 or 3 Meg. When the user wishes to do this I need some way of queing the documents so that they can be dealt with by a seperate process.

The server is in the public domain. This is why I was thinking about allowing the remote server do the work as I dont want to install a component to do this on every client machine.

I am bleeding confused by this.

[mendhak]

Let me repeat what you just said.

The caller application will send a string (containing the location of a file) to a web service.

The web service puts the string into an MSMQ Queue.

The web service then needs to actually grab the file from the calling application's computer.

Is this going to be a streamlined process? Do the documents need to be sent to the web service along with the strings?

Because if it's more streamlined, you can have the web service return a value confirming that the string was added to MSMQ, which then makes the application call another web service method which accepts a file stream.

[venerable bede]

The problem with that approach is that the upload process may fail and it will tie up the client app and there doesn't seem to be a good reason for using MSMQ. There may be many documents already in the que and it could be some time before the documents turn has come.

I need to be able to handle the MSMQ entry at any time.

Man I am getting confused about this. Maybe its a Friday thing although I think Ignorance of this technology plays a part.

I am convinced that I am looking at this from the wrong angle.

[mendhak]

You've got a complex situation and terrible limitations. I am not sure how you could accomplish this over http, I'll have to think about this. I'll post back if something comes to mind.

[venerable bede]

Thanks Mendhak.

You're a friendly frog

I'll be looking at this all weekend

[ntg]

I need to develop a windows application which places the location of a document file onto MSMQ onto a remote server. I could do this with a web service.

That sounds fine.

The problem is that a server side component monitoring MSMQ then needs to grab the document from the client machine and copy it into a folder on the server.

I can only rely on http and port 80.

The problem with that approach is that the upload process may fail and it will tie up the client app and there doesn't seem to be a good reason for using MSMQ.

Ehm...I think that it's either the server pulling the file somehow or the client pushing the file somehow. If the server is pulling the file, it needs a way to do it - that means either existing infrastructure (like IIS running on the client or a file share) or something custom (like a client app exposed through remoting). If you're on an intranet environment, pulling the file out of a share seems fine. If you're on the internet that dog won't hunt and you either need something like IIS (unlikely for most clients) or a custom client app. The last case would indicate that there is a client application (either interactive or a service) continuously running on the client...

May I ask what's the ultimate non-techical need you're trying to satisfy?