Planning your network topology

Where to place your HCL Traveler server in your network depends on the types of devices used and sync types. This section includes a list of possible scenarios and why one might be selected over another.

HCL Verse and HCL Traveler for Microsoft Outlook clients

The HCL Verse clients running on Apple and Android devices and HCL Traveler for Microsoft Outlook (HTMO) use a single communication channel for data syncing. All clients support Push notification. Verse Android clients support push notifications via Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM) and Verse iOS clients via Apple Push Notification service (APNs). HTMO clients use a long running HTTP/HTTPS request to be notified of server changes.

The data sync channel uses HTTP or HTTPS to communicate with the server. This channel is always initiated from the mobile device. You should secure the channel either through a Virtual Private Network (VPN) or by using HTTPS so that all data sent is encrypted. FCM or APNS notifications are received by the HCL Verse Client which then initiates a data sync request.

Other devices

Supported third-party clients that use the Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync protocol, for example Apple iOS mail clients, use either HTTP or HTTPS communication channels to sync with the Traveler server. These clients initiate a long running HTTP or HTTPs connection (Push request) to be notified of server changes. Whenever a request returns with results indicating server changes, the client initiates a data sync request.

Connection types and ports

The following table provides a summary of the connection types used by the mobile devices and the ports they use by default. Only one data sync channel is used but the mobile devices can support either HTTP or HTTPS.

Table 1. Connection types and default port numbers
Used for	Connection type	Default port	Notes
Data syncing	HTTPS	443	This connection type is best for data syncing. The port uses a secure channel for data transfer between the device and the server.
Data syncing	HTTP	80	The port uses an unsecured channel for data transfer between the device and the server.

These topics describe different network topologies and give more specific information about why each might be used:

Server types and ports

The following table provides a summary of the connection types used by the HCL Traveler Server and the ports used by default.

Table 2. Server ports
Used for	Connection type	Default port	Notes
Inter-process communication	TCP	50125	Port used for servlet to server task communication as well as server task to server task communication (HA pool). Secure socket (SSL) is used if configured.
Inter-process communication	TCP	50126	Port used for server task to servlet communication. Secure socket (SSL) is used if configured.
Database communication	TCP	50000 (DB2®) 1433 (MS SQL) 3306 (MySQL)	Database server port used for server task to database server jdbc communication. The port for the DB2 Database instance can vary based on the number of instances on the database server. Port 1433 for the SQL Server communication is standard. Port 3306 is standard for MySQL.
Mail server communication	RPC/TCP	1352	Port used by the HCL Traveler server to communicate with each mail server.

Network interfaces

During initialization, the HCL Traveler server automatically scans the available network interfaces and uses the first active, non-loopback option. In most cases, this automatic selection will be adequate. If the server has multiple network interfaces, however, the wrong interface may be selected during initialization. If this happens, the notes.ini setting named NTS_HOST_IP_ADDR can be used to manually select the correct interface. See Notes.ini settings for more details about configuring the interface and port settings.

For information on FCM, see the Firebase Cloud Messaging reference provided by Google.

For information on APNS, see Communicating with APNs in the Apple documentation.

For related notes.ini settings, see Push messaging through a proxy.