HTTP Provider Service
Purpose
HTTP Provider Service provides the low-level communication and transportation services for the AS Java Web Container to work properly. It is a service that implements Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) version 1.1 (specified by RFC 2616).
HTTP is a request-response protocol. Based on that paradigm, HTTP Provider Service takes care of parsing the URL of the incoming HTTP requests, dispatching them to the proper AS Java’s module for processing, and returning the generated responses back to the client. It provides important features to secure a robust, high performance communication infrastructure for running high-volume business Web applications.
HTTP Provider Service is a session service, that is, it runs on both dispatcher and server nodes. That allows for using load balancing algorithms and fast requests processing.
From a client’s point of view, HTTP Provider Service, together with Internet Communication Manager (ICM), represents a server socket that listens for client HTTP connections to the AS Java.
Integration
HTTP Provider Service is an integral part of AS Java’s Web Container. It is closely related to the Web Container Service, which represents an environment for running servlets, JavaServer Pages (JSP) components, and JavaServer Faces (JSF) components. HTTP Provider Service, together with ICM, is the underlying communication module that transfers HTTP responses generated by Web applications’ dynamic content back to the client.
Features
Some of the most important features of the HTTP Provider Service are:
● Optimal support for HTTP 1.0 and 1.1 features such as persistent connections, client caching, and so on.
● Support for communication through proxy environment
● Support for multipart request parsing
More information: Request Parsing.
● Support for Virtual Host Configuration
● Support for applying gzip transfer encoding to requests and responses to static Web resources
● Support Session Security Protection
You can perform the following tasks with the HTTP Provider Service:
● Configuring Rules for HTTP Responses Compression
● Using Logon Groups for Load Balancing
● Updating the HTTP Cache Content
● Configuring HTTP Responses Caching
● Troubleshooting Application Errors
● Specifying the Maximum Server Threads for ICM Requests
● Configuring HTTP Access Logs
All tasks can be performed using SAP NetWeaver Administrator. Alternatively, for some of them you can use Telnet (using the HTTP shell command group).
More information: Administration Using Telnet