EAI HTTP Transport

Little known fact: the HTTP transport supports PUT in addition to the documented GET and POST. Just set the HTTPRequestMethod parameter to the literal PUT.

Also, for bonus points the transport supports NTLM authentication out of the box. There is an Oracle Support ticket ([ID 758617.1]) that indicates that it is not, but that is wrong. I did a Wireshark capture from our Siebel server and found that not only did it support NTLM, but it pre-authenticated thus reducing the number of round trips that are required.

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These undocumented facts were discovered while attempting to integrate InfoPath and Sharepoint with Siebel. As part of our process to bind the products together I need to create an instance xml document of an InfoPath form and then upload it to Sharepoint (thereby storing only the link in the SR attachments table).

Several approaches were taken with varying complexity, but none with satisfaction until I discovered that the HTTP Transport supported PUT. (the instance document is created by an xslt on the server)

1. Have the workflow process save the instance document to a webdav share from sharepoint. It works from windows explorer but not from the EAI File Transport Send method.

2. I explored using the Sharepoint web service API's and creating a Java business service - the complexity was too high for something this simple. It had a code smell to it that I didn't like. Plus this would be our first Java business service so there would have to be a significant server deployment footprint.

3. Use the MSXMLHTTP COM object in a custom business service. The code is dead easy b/c sharepoint supports a simple PUT method to a document library. I was in the process of starting to code the new business service when I decided to just "Try" inserting the PUT into the business service method arg.

So, if your target server want an HTTP PUT you can use it using the built in HTTP Transport.