System and method for collaborative processing of distributed applications

A system for collaborative processing with distributed applications, comprising:

• at least one application context in which an application is executed, the application context including an application CGI for managing the application, and a communication interface on which application data is communicated as messages;
• a messaging bus configured to communicate the messages for processing by the application;
• at least one gateway context including a gateway CGI configured for maintaining two-way asynchronous communication between the messaging bus and a remote application through a firewall, said remote application being executed by a client, the gateway CGI configured to:
• a) receive a request from the remote application;
• b) execute operations associated with the gateway CGI, wherein the operations are configured to perform the two-way asynchronous communication with the remote application;
• and
• c) repeat at least one of the operations in step b) until termination of the gateway CGI by the remote application or by the gateway CGI;
• and
• a web server, said web server configured to establish one socket connection with said client through said firewall and configured to initialize the gateway CGI after receiving an HTTP request to initialize the gateway CGI from said remote application over said one socket connection during a single HTTP transaction with the remote application;
• wherein the gateway CGI is configured such that the operations executed by the gateway CGI enable said two-way asynchronous communication between said messaging bus and said remote application to occur within the single HTTP transaction and over said one socket connection.

A storage medium storing one or more computer programs for causing a host computer to execute a process, said one or more computer programs including program code for a web server and a gateway CGI, said process comprising:

• opening, by the web server, one socket connection with a client computer;
• initializing, by the web server, the gateway CGI after receiving an HTTP request to initialize the gateway CGI from the client computer over the one socket connection during a single HTTP transaction with the client computer;
• performing, by the gateway CGI, operations to enable two-way asynchronous communication between the host computer and the client computer to occur within the single HTTP transaction and over the one socket connection;
• ending, by the gateway CGI, the performance of the operations after receiving a termination request from the client computer;
• and
• closing, by the web server, the one socket connection.