Patent ID: 7359978

Claim:
A method of communication between a service external to a network firewall and a client internal to the firewall, comprising the steps of: (a) effecting an HTTP request from the client to the service, this request including an identifier; (b) at the service, in response to said HTTP request, establishing a communications socket at the service for communicating data between the service and the client, and recording an association between the identifier and said socket; (c) after a predetermined time interval, effecting a further HTTP request from the client to the service, said further HTTP request including said identifier; (d) at the service, in response to said further HTTP request, closing the communications socket indicated in said association, opening a new communications socket at the service for communicating data between said service and the client, and updating said association to associate the new communications socket with said identifier; and (e) repeating steps (c) and (d) while access between the service and the client is to continue; the service providing data to the client via the communications socket currently associated with said identifier by said association.