Installation guide

Using WWW-STATUS
FlashCONNECT Administrator’s Guide 101
FlashCONNECT Heartbeats
FlashCONNECT heartbeats are often required when the network connection
between the FlashCONNECT Web server and FlashCONNECT mvBase server passes
through a firewall. As a security feature, some firewalls track a connection's activity
and drop the connection if there is no activity for a period of time. Since
FlashCONNECT is designed for the efficient use of network resources, when no
requests are being made, it does not pass any messages between the FlashCONNECT
Web and D3 server. During these idle periods, the firewall may drop the connection
between the FlashCONNECT Web and database server. When a request is
subsequently made, an error occurs because, unknown to both the FlashCONNECT
Web and database server, the connection was dropped. A heartbeat prevents this
from occurring by periodically exchanging messages between the FlashCONNECT
Web and database server whenever FlashCONNECT is waiting for a message from the
Web server.
The heartbeat serves a second purpose as well. If either the FlashCONNECT Web or
database server crashes, the server still running does not detect that the other
server has stopped, and attempts to continue to use the now non-existent
connection. The heartbeat solves this problem by:
• terminating the connection if the database server does not respond to the
heartbeat sent by FCService within a few seconds.
• terminating the connection (through w3Monitor) if database is waiting for a
request and does not receive a request or heartbeat within a specified time
frame.
Whenever a connection is terminated due to a heartbeat failure, a message is
logged to the Event log (Windows Web servers), flashconnect.log (UNIX Web
servers), or w3Logs,FlashCONNECT file (database Server).
w3_SettingSocket Socket FlashCONNECT is attempting to establish a
connection with FCService. If this message
appears for more than a brief period, ensure
that the connection to FCService is correct,
that FCService is running, and the D3 and Web
server components are compatible. This
message appears only when a FlashCONNECT
connection is starting.
Message Name Message Meaning and Suggestions