We want to run our distributed DCOM-application across the Internet, and
this ought to be

simple since it works fine on any TCP/IP-LAN.

However, our preliminary attempts to run DCOM through the Internet have
resulted in great

frustration:

1) Remote DCOM-interface function calls involving string or integer
parameters seem to work

through the internet, BUT when passing interface pointers as parameters
(IDispatch) DCOM

fails to handle any calls. What are the possible causes of this behaviour?

2) We have noted, that DCOMcnfg in NT5 offers the choice "DCOM through
HTTP" - but what does

this mean when compared to ordinary DCOM through TCP/IP? Is it due to a
firewall-related

issue that this choice is made available? It seems unlikely that this
approach can solve the

problem described in issue 1 - do you agree?

3) We know next to nothing about the newest/upcoming technologies for
developing responsive

Internet-applications. We are facing a demand of approximately 50
simultaneous users making

changes (using our Windows application) in the same ODBC-database as
hundreds of simultaneous users doing only (lots of)

read-operations. Do you have any suggestions as to which application
infrastructure would be

appropriate? Should we get acquainted with any books/seminars/courses/tools
that you can

think of?

thanks in advance