Know the Web service correctly (turn)

After the Web|web service has accumulated strength in its day-to-day it activities, the next wave of application design is coming. The trend is Web services-the business logic and information that can be accessed through SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) based on XML (Extensible Markup Language).

In this article, EWeek Labs explains why Web services can reduce costs and enhance business linkages, as well as the timing of the opportunity to include and incorporate such structures into strategic plans for e-business activities.

Until now, and for at least a short time in the future, Web services are just the concept of sellers, not the real thing, although Microsoft and Sun have developed them separately based on this concept. NET and Sun one development system. But they are not unique--except for the hundreds of Web service supporters that have emerged overnight, and those who are currently not enthusiastic about the XML and SOAP standards of the World Wide Web Consortium.

Web services are the great equalizer of heterogeneous networks and the common information exchange technology in IT industry.

In fact, easy communication between disparate hardware platforms is one of the most obvious-and direct-benefits of Web services architecture. For example, an employee can use a handheld device based on the J2ME (Java 2 mini version), such as a Motorola Iden mobile phone, to directly access a service on an IBM os/390 host (in which case the technologies of the J2ME company is needed Lutris SOAP client and runs the SOAP service program of IBM or Iona Technologies Company on the host computer.

WEB services are also most likely to be the basis for a new wave of e-business linkages using loosely coupled it structures. WEB services allow organizations to selectively enable their business partners to access their internal applications and data without having to specifically design a gateway for each business partner. They also enable companies to access the same services provided by other companies and create client programs to gather information in real time from a wide range of internal and external resources.

It will take many years for WEB services to become a general-purpose computing platform, and the internal architectures required for many external Web services, such as authorization and payment systems, are not available.

However, some of the demo services are already on the Web: the Xmethods.net Web site offers FedEx's package tracking, currency conversion, and services to check traffic information on California State highways; integrated tools vendor Cape Clear software company provides airport weather forecast; Continental Airlines Airlines provides flight status information, while ActiveState offers stock trading information. In addition, the purpose of Microsoft's HailStorm project is to provide a variety of Web services.

Of course, it is important to be careful when using Web services in critical internal architectures; This technology is still in the preview phase of the developer, and there is an interconnection problem between different SOAP implementations. For example, Microsoft's. NET requires processing HTTP SOAPAction header information, but the Apache Software Foundation Company's Apache SOAP default scheme is not required.

The lack of development tools has become the biggest stumbling block to the adoption of Web services. While standards for Web services, such as XML and SOAP, and basic libraries such as Apache soap are now fairly stable, mainstream development tools still ignore the existence of new platforms.

A relatively advanced software in the field of Web Services is Delphi 6 of Borland Software, which was released in June and provides original support for creating SOAP service programs and SOAP clients. Another company at the edge of Web services is IBM, It released its WebSphere 4.0 application services software and integrated SOAP development tools last month.

However, even if the development tools used by an enterprise do not provide original support for Web services, it is not so difficult to develop Web services as long as they use languages that support Internet Protocol and XML.

The key point is that you should now examine these technologies and compare their advantages, while eWEEK Labs recommends using Web services next year, starting internally and then selectively using external business partners.

While the interconnection between different hardware and division networks is the ultimate goal of Web services, our survey of companies that used Web services earlier shows a surprising finding: the most immediate benefit of Web services is in strict internal implementations-for example, the work of database integration.

"There is a lot of interest in the internal use of Web services, and we decided to make it part of our entire architecture," Sanjay Sarathy, who is California, Snta Clara, Sun-netscape Alliance, iplanet Company's product marketing, Director of the application and integration business. " The process of building from inside to outside attracts a lot of people. It is difficult to implement it in particular at the same time based on both internal and external.

A particularly difficult interconnection barrier the gap between the Microsoft COM (Component Object model) used by the--windows program and the Sun's JavaBeans and Enterprise JavaBeans object Model-is easier to cross through soap.

In the eWEEK Labs test, we modified a SOAP based Java client application that was originally designed to invoke the code on the Iplanet Application server (which uses Apache's Apache SOAP Toolkit to provide Web service support) and, after modification, It calls us with Microsoft C #. NET language, a component that runs on Windows.

Other efforts, particularly the CORBA (Common Object request agent structure) of the object Management organization, have attempted to provide partial computation. The problem with CORBA is that it gets a little too big, "said David Young, chief propaganda officer at Lutris Technologies, Santa Cruz, Calif. In the early 90, Young had worked in the X/open standard team, when CORBA's development work was in full swing. It was too much of a fire, "Young said," hoping to meet all the demands of everyone. Soap is a simpler concept that has nothing to do with software implementation details. Soap is definitely the key to creating a beautiful, concise, interconnected software world.

The scope of soap must be quite broad to support everything it promises, especially for a two-year-old agreement. Moreover, its capabilities are staggering, as soap and related technologies are being widely and quickly adopted-even for rivals such as Microsoft and Sun, Web services have become a reality. The SOAP site www.soapware.org lists 71 SOAP-enabled packages, and more packages are still under development.

In addition, variants of Web services--such as a list of available services and recommendations for encryption standards, digital signatures and message routing--are emerging quickly. The directory of Web Services is listed in Microsoft and IBM's universal, Description, Discovery and integration directories, and other companies will soon catch up.

Within two, we will see a more flexible pattern for how applications get information and where to get information and how to handle transactions. A well-defined interface based on more easily processed XML, plus an internal and external list of services, All this will make it unnecessary to reinvent programming tools in most places.

When I met Microsoft's programming language designer Anders Hejlsberg, he described C # (C Sharp) as "the first truly component-oriented language in the C + + family." The programming model of data (attributes) and behavior (events) in program components gets more natural support than Java in C #, he said. [Java] Simulates object properties with a named transformation of the access method and uses the adapter and pipe simulation event handling, "Hejlsberg said. He admits that both Java and C + + support a component-oriented programming style, but he also points to the differences in these languages," components are not first "--he means in C # , such as changing the title of a graphics button control will use less code and simpler syntax, because the button has become a component responsible for managing its own look and feel. Component-oriented, Hejlsberg says, enables developers to access the Web in any user's desire Service where you embed your own software. Here is a comparison of the respective features of C + +, Java, and C #.--peter Coffee
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