deploying JBoss web service to public website (external domain provider)

[jonmejoy]

Hi,

Please, could you friends help answer my question. I'd like to publish a web service I will build using JBoss j2ee backend and Apache Tomcat web server to my public website. For my public web site, I can think of two options:

1. have my public website hosted by a professional hosting company like Yahoo! business but I have not finalized yet who that is going to be. I will buy my domain (e.g. mysomethingdom.com) through this provider so I won't have to deal with public IP address, bandwidth, etc.

-or-

2. set up my web server at home with a public routable IP. I will have to configure my router for ports 8080/80 fwding etc. Using this option, the url will have the explicit public IP instead of a domain name

How can I deploy my web service using option 1 and make it publicly reachable? I am new to JBoss/Tomcat although I am not new to Web Services architecture.

If option 1 is not feasible, is option 2 my last resort? I really hope option 1 is workable.

Thanks in advance a ton!

Chirantan

[mmusaji]

So what ever is hosted by the professional company would be the gateway in to your web application (the url that everyone sees). Your JBoss instance would be on your server at home (web application) and this would be called by the website (the one hosted by professional hosting). Your web application would be not publicly available so you would run it with authentication against your web site.

The downside to this is that every request that needs some sort of backend processing would need to contact your JBoss server. So depending on the amount of traffic that you are expecting perhaps some sort of load balancer may be needed.

I'm not by any means a web developer nor have I done this myself so I could be completely wrong. It's just my idea

Mus

[jonmejoy]

Yes, this approach makes sense. Thx.

I think I will have to verify though -

- that the hosting company can give me a 'site builder' facility that allows the gateway logic. I mean, hits against the http url by any web client will have to be translated to web services call to the host sitting in my home

- which means I have to have a way to generate a web service client (SOAP?) from my web service wsdl and embed that client in the web server hosted by the company. This client then has to trap hits against the web server http url and mediate the web service call.

Chirantan