Web Services Overview

Outline

1. Why Web Services?

2. The Web Services Computing Stack.
3. Summary.
1. Why Web Services?
Today’s Web
 Web designed for application to human
interactions
 Served very well its purpose:
 Information sharing: a distributed content library.
 Enabled B2C e-commerce.
 Non-automated B2B interactions.
 How did it happen?
 Built on very few standards: http + html
 Shallow interaction model: very few assumptions
made about computing platforms.
 Result was ubiquity.
What’s next?
 The Web is everywhere. There is a lot more we can do!
 E-marketplaces.
 Open, automated B2B e-commerce.
 Business process integration on the Web.
 Resource sharing, distributed computing.
 Current approach is ad-hoc on top of existing standards.
 e.g., application-to-application interactions with HTML forms.
 Goal:
enabling systematic application-to-application
interaction on the Web.
Web Services

“Web services” is an effort to build a

distributed computing platform for the
Web.

Yet another one!

Designing Web Services I
Goals
Enable universal interoperability.
Widespread adoption, ubiquity: fast!
 Compare with the good but still limited adoption of
the OMG’s OMA.
Enable (Internet scale) dynamic binding.
 Support a service oriented architecture (SOA).
Efficiently support both open (Web) and more
constrained environments.
Designing Web Services II
Requirements
Based on standards. Pervasive support is critical.
Minimal amount of required infrastructure is
assumed.
 Only a minimal set of standards must be implemented.
Very low level of application integration is
expected.
 But may be increased in a flexible way.
Focuses on messages and documents, not on APIs.
Web Services Model

Web service applications are

encapsulated, loosely coupled Web
“components” that can bind
dynamically to each other
2. The Web Services
Framework
Web Services Framework
 Framework can be described in terms of

 What goes “on the wire”:

Formats and protocols.

 What describes what goes on the wire:

Description languages.

 What allows us to find these descriptions:

Discovery of services.
XML Messaging: SOAP
SOAP 1.1 defined:
An XML envelope for XML messaging,
 Headers + body
An HTTP binding for SOAP messaging.
 SOAP is “transport independent”.
A convention for doing RPC.
An XML serialization format for structured
data
SOAP Attachments adds
How to carry and reference data attachments
using in a MIME envelope and a SOAP
envelope.
The SOAP Envelope

<SOAP-ENV:Envelope
xmlns="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/">

< SOAP-ENV:Header>
...
</ SOAP-ENV:Header>

< SOAP-ENV:Body>
...
</ SOAP-ENV:Body>
...
</ SOAP-ENV: Envelope>
What goes on the wire
 Internet-scale integration needs
a lingua-franca Context
Context
 XML messaging protocol over
HTTP: SOAP
Transactions
Transactions
 Intra-enterprise integration
Routing
Routing
needs to allow alternates:
 CORBA, RMI
 Messaging Reliability
Reliability
 In-memory method calls
Security
Security

Attachments
Attachments

W3C
SOAP
SOAP
Descriptions: Meta-data
 Integration requires Agreements
Agreements
interoperable machine-
understandable descriptions Flows
Flows and

WSFL
and
Composition
Composition
 Enables dynamic, delayed Public
Public Flows
Flows
binding of components.
Service
Service QoS
QoS
 Language extensibility
provides support for Service
Service

WSDL
different levels of application
integration. Interface
Interface

XML
XML Schema
Schema
Web Services Description
Language
 Provides functional description of network
services:
 IDL description
 Protocol and deployment details
 Platform independent description.
 Extensible language.
 A short history:
 WSDL v1.0, 9/2000
 WSDL v1.1 submitted to W3C 3/2001.
 A de facto industry standard.
WSDL Structure
Service

 portType
 Abstract definition of a Port Port
(e.g. http://host/svc)

service (set of
Binding Binding
operations) (e.g. SOAP)

 Multiple bindings per

portType: portType
 How to access it
 SOAP, JMS, direct call operation(s)
 Ports inMesage outMessage
 Where to access it
Abstract interface
Using WSDL
1. As extended IDL: WSDL allows tools to
generate compatible client and server stubs.
 Tool support for top-down, bottom-up and “meet
in the middle” development.
1. Allows industries to define standardized
service interfaces.
2. Allows advertisement of service descriptions,
enables dynamic discovery and binding of
compatible services.
 Used in conjunction with UDDI registry
1. Provides a normalized description of
heterogeneous applications.
Client invocation

 Single stub can invoke services over different bindings

 Depends only on abstract interface.
 Are independent of binding (but pluggable).
 Add new bindings without recompiling/redeploying stub

 Allows optimisations
RMI-
based on the bindings of service. IIOP
 Will support extended
Client Proxy SOAP/
services models if described object HTTP
In WSDL
JMS/
MQ
WSFL Overview

 WSFL describes Web

Service compositions.
[ WS]
1. Usage patterns of Web
Services: describes [ WS]
workflow or business
processes.
2. Interaction patterns:
describes overall partner
A
interactions.
C

B
 WSFL Flow Models

Activities
Control links define represent
execution flow as a units of
directed acyclic graph processing.
Activities are
[ WS]
associated with
specific typed
service providers

Flow of data is
modeled
through data
Activities can be
links.
mapped to the
flow interface
Using Flow Models
 “Public flows” provide a representation of the service
behavior as required by its users.
 Typically, an abstraction of the actual flow begin executed
 Defines a “behavioral contract” for the service.
 Internal implementation need not be flow-based.
 Flows are reusable: specify components types, but not what
specific services should be used!

 “Private flows” are the flows executed in practice.

 WSFL serves as a “portable flow implementation language”

 Same language is used in WSFL to represent both types

of processes.
Global Models

 Global models describe how the

composed Web Services
interact.
A
 RosettaNet automated.
 Like an ADL.
C
 Interactions are modeled as links
between endpoints of two
service interfaces (WSDL
operations).
 An essentially distributed B
description of the interaction.
Discovery: Finding Meta-data

 Static binding
requires service
“libraries”.

 Dynamic binding
requires runtime Directory
Directory UDDI
discovery of meta-
Inspection ADS,
data Inspection DISCO
UDDI Overview

 UDDI defines the operation of a service

registry:
 Data structures for registering
 Businesses
 Technical specifications: tModel is a keyed
reference to a technical specification.
 Service and service endpoints: referencing the
supported tModels
 SOAP Access API
 Rules for the operation of a global registry
 “private” UDDI nodes are likely to appear, though.
 Web Service
UDDI Relationships Web Service

businessEntity
businessEntity
businessEntity
businessService Rosetta-Net
businessService
BASDA
bindingTemplate Simple.Buy
bindingTemplate
InstanceDetails Schemas,
InstanceDetails
Interchange specification

categoryBag tModels
SIC CODE
keyedReference
keyedReference NAICS

identifierBag
DUNS Numbers
keyedReference
keyedReference Thomas Registry ID
3. Summary
Summary
 The Web services framework is being defined,
standardized and supported by the industry at
a record pace.

 Broad industry acceptance and standard

compliance will make it ubiquitous.

 Will bring an unprecedented level of

interoperability to Web applications.

 The benefits of Web services, however, are not

limited to the Web!
For more information
SOAP
http://www.w3c.org/TR/soap
WSDL
http://www.w3c.org/TR/wsdl
UDDI
http://www.uddi.org
WSFL
http://www.ibm.com/software/webservices
Me:
mailto:[email protected]