Is there a WFServlet parameter that can be used to render an image located on the reporting server?

Our reporting server and application server are on different machines. I'm running procedures in batch mode that produce a graph in GIF format, and need to be able to access these graphs in an HTML page. Right now, my only option is to use an external FTP process to grab the image files and move them to the web servers, however this may not be a feasible solution going forward. Does anyone know if there is a way to use WFServlet to retrieve these image files?

Prior to this last upgrade, we also had a split environment. Our developers used Dev Studio to copy the pages and image filess that they needed from the Data Servers environment to the Web Applications environment. The servlet will not look on the reporting server box for web content when a page is being run from a browser.

... unless you install a web server such as IIS, Apache etc. on the reporting server and make the directory available via that WS.

T

Tony,

For the most part, he is running his reporting server on a Unix platform. He'd have to use a 'share' drive on his Unix platforms or a hub/sub environment. Both of these methods would be slow and the latter creates licensing issues.

It is very easy in Dev Studio to 'drag' components from Data Servers to Web Applications.

Ginny,

I didn't say that it wouldn't have problems, just that it was an alternative

T

Do you have a license for report caster? If so, schedule the jobs with a FTP delivery.

On a side note, there is some WFServlet calls that are responsible for moving files around (like when you use dev studio to drag and drop them from the reporting server to the web application directory). For kicks and giggles I decided to trace what was happening, and there is a series of commands that are being run to accomplish a file transfer. I tried to mimic them, but there is a bunch of internal stuff that is used to perform caching and encoding that you will not be able to activate. So, for all intents and purposes, there does not appear to be a parameter that will allow you to do what you are looking for.

Now, if you know Java ....

My original plan was to use ReportCaster, however I discovered 2 main issues:

1. ReportCaster apparently decides exacly which image size is best when it creates a graph. Regardless of what I do in the report code to resize the image, RC will create it in 800x400. We need it to be a specific size in order to fit correctly on our site.

2. ReportCaster FTP option allows for only 1 server endpoint. Our environment has clustered web servers, with a couple of entry points. All told, I'd need to FTP the output to at least 9 locations spread across 6 physical servers. The only way I can come up with to do this is to use multiple, redundant RC jobs. (sorta seems like a waste)

Now, the plan is to use RC to create and hold the image files, and use an external process to move the image files around.

Someone suggested using drag-and-drop via Dev Studio; this would be an option. However, I'd like to create a process that requires no manual intervention. I'd like to generate these graphs weekly and have them instantly available to our web app. That's why I was hoping to be able to use WFServlet to do this, rather than phyiscally moving the image files. But, it sounds like it isn't possible.

You could probably create a focexec which would be called to display the image. I believe this would then get the image from you data server.

TABLE FILE SYSTABLE
BY NAME NOPRINT
HEADING
""
ON TABLE SET STYLE *
TYPE=HEADING, IMAGE=imagename.png,$
ENDSTYLE
END

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Gizmo,

If your using Samba, you should also be able to set an alias on your webserver that points to the directory on the reporting server that the file is stored in.

eg. \\servername\usr\ibi\apps\baseapp\

quote:

You could probably create a focexec which would be called to display the image.

I'm not sure I see how this is going to work. How can I create a fex with HTML output that can render an image without that fex being someplace accessible over HTTP? When I run a request like you suggested, it displays a broken image. It's looking for the image at /approot/[app folder], which doesn't exist since the app server and data server are on different physical machines.

quote:

If your using Samba

Wouldn't that be nice..?!? Unfortunately, Samba isn't a supported utility...

Thanks for the suggestions. If anyone has any other suggestions, please let me know.

Please check my posts above. The answer is there. You have to copy the images to the ibi/apps directory path being pointed to by your web server.

quote:

Please check my posts above. The answer is there. You have to copy the images to the ibi/apps directory path being pointed to by your web server.

Yep. It sounds like their is no way to utilize WFServlet to render the images, so I'll have to physically move the files. Now, I just need to find a good, non-manual process to do so.

You can write a script on the Solaris box, fired off by cron or some scheduler, that does an ftp to the Windows box.