The Importance of Web Services in the Development of Web-Based Solutions - Assignment Example

TECHNICAL REPORT ON WEB SERVICES 1.0 INTRODUCTION According to Connolly (2005) web services can be defined as a communication method between two devices that electronically connected over the web (Connolly, 2005). A web service can also been defined as a system of software developed and designed to maintain an interoperable interaction between two machines that are networked together (Connolly, 2005). Web services are also known as application services and can be viewed as services that encompasses data, programming as well as human resources provided by the web servers to the web user (Hackos, 2002). Web services are provided by the Application Service Providers (ASPs). Different types of web services are available for use by the web users. These types of web services range from major services such as customer relationship management and storage management web services used in a majority of business organisations to minor web services such as stock furnishing and web services that enable the business organisations (web users) to check for bids on items under auction (Hackos, 2002). In the contemporary business world, web services has become a widespread phenomenon that has been widely applied in both multinational business corporations and small scale businesses to enhance business activities in a rather competitive business environment. For example, the use of web services in customer relationship management enhances service delivery to the customers across the globe thus increasing the competitive edge of the business organisation. The purpose of this paper is to explore a wide range of issues related to web services including the importance of web services in the development of web based solutions to meet the business needs today, the mechanisms available for discovery of a web service, the key features and principles of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), the characteristics/features of approaches that can be used for delivering internet applications and finally the platforms for developing web services. 2.0 IMPORTANCE OF WEB SERVICES IN DEVELOPING BUSINES SOLUTIONS It is important to take into consideration the fact that the idea behind web services is to enhance transactions over the internet rather than using the internet as a visual tool. In other words, web services enable businesses to carry out transactions over the internet. The advantages of web services can be explained as follows; 2.1 Usability This is one of the greatest advantages of web services. Usability means that web services makes it possible for business organisations to expose a wide range of systems of business logic to be exposed over the web. In this regard, the web users (such as business clients) can be able to choose the most desirable web service that fits their needs (Mackey, 2003). This reduces the time taken by the business organisations to re-invent the wheel for every client. Rather business logic applications specific to different clients can be added easily using web services on the client side. Hence, using the tools and the language you want, web services make it possible to develop client-side or service codes that meet the client’s needs. As a result, web services increases the level of service delivery to the business customers thus increasing the competitiveness of the business in the business environment. 2.2 Sharing The complexity of business activities in the modern business world has prompted firms and companies to use a wide range of technologies such as Portals, B2B, EDI, EAI ( to mention a few) for computing distribution (Mackey, 2003). Web services play an important role in supporting the complex business activities/environment because all these technologies can be supported by web services. This reduces the costs that might have been incurred by businesses in deploying all the above technologies in their organizations. Hence, the aspect of sharing that characterises web services helps in reducing costs of investing on every single technology in the organization. 2.3 Automatic Discovery Mechanism In the contemporary business environment, businesses are exploring customers from different regions of the world. In this respect, businesses organizations must be able to connect and share with customers all over the globe. Web services have the automatic discovery mechanism that makes it possible o locate Service Providers (SPs) in different parts of the world. As a result, firms and other business oriented companies can connect to customers using different Service Providers (SPs) all over the world thus increasing the marketability of the company to new customers (Mackey, 2003). Since, businesses strive to increase their revenues by finding new markets, web services widens the customer base which further increases the revenues generated by the company. 2.4 Low communication costs Web services can be implemented using low cost internet because they use HTTP Protocol that supports SOAP messages. This makes it possible for extensive communication to be carried out using web services because web services functions even with low costs internet. Since, the objective of businesses is to increase and enhance communication with their customers, web services are therefore important as they increase the level of communication between firms and their customers. 3.0 WEB SERVICE DISCOVERY The discovery of web services is defined as the process of aligning a given web service to a given task. In other words, it is the process through which the most appropriate web services that can be used to perform a particular task are found. Mechanisms for web service discovery make it possible to store information about services, businesses and other details. In this respect, the mechanism helps in retrieving different types of service providers besides the services advertised by such service providers. The first mechanism for WS discovery is the catalogue. The catalogue mechanism discovers web services by exploring key words and patience and name of the service which are selected through the registry results. The second mechanism is the P2P Solutions. This discovers web services through provision of data and routing infrastructure in a self-organized and decentralized environment. Examples of P2P include Pastry, CAN and Chord. The third mechanism is the Web Services Dynamic Discovery (WSDD) (Mackey, 2003). It discovers web services by defining discovery protocols that explore local networks to locate web services. 4.0 SERVICE-ORIENTED ARCHITECTURE Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) is a set of methodologies and principles used for developing and designing software into interoperable services. Among the features of SOA include “safe” wrappers where SOA services run. The other feature is service-orientation. This is the basic and the most important principle for designing SOA where users can be made to access services without knowledge of the platform being used to provide such independent services. Some of the principles related to SOA include modularity, granularity, componentization, reuse, interoperability and modularity. The second principle related to SOA is standards-compliance (both industry and common specific). The third principle related to SOA is service categorization and identification, delivery and provisioning as well as racking and monitoring. Other principles related to SOA include loose coupling, service autonomy; service Abstraction, service staleness, service standard contract, service discoverability, service normalization, service composability, service relevance, service optimization, transparency service location and service encapsulation (Mackey, 2003). One of the key relationships between web services and SOA is that service-oriented architecture can be implemented using web services. In this regard, web services helps in developing functional building-blocks that can be accessed easily using internet protocols that are independent of programming and platform languages. The building-block in SOA developed through web services play several roles such as service provider and service consumer. The second relationship between web services and SOA is that web service standards such as SOAP are used significantly in building SOAs. Such standards provide greater protection and interoperability from vendor software (Mackey, 2003). The third relationship between web services and SOA is found in that web services allow for greater and enhanced interoperability of SOA. As a matter of fact, interoperability is the vital feature of SOA. This makes it possible for a variety of web services to run on different hardware architecture software platforms. Hence, web service is the most preferred methods of realizing Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA). 5.0 DELIVERING INTERNET APPLICATIONS SOA is one form of web architecture. A number of approaches that can be used for delivering internet applications include SOAP, WSDL and REST. SOAP or the Simple Object Access Protocol is defined as a specification protocol used for exchanging information that is highly structured in the process of implementing web services over computer networks (Mackey, 2003). SOAP relies mostly on XML or the Extensible Mark-up Language for the format of the message. One of the key features related to SOAP is Extensibility (Mackey, 2003). The second feature related to SOAP is Neutrality. This means that transport protocols such as SMTP, HTTP, TCP can be used with SOAP. The third feature is Indepdence which means that any model of programming can be used with SOAP. WSDL or Web Service Description Language is defined as an XML-based language mostly applied in the description of web service functionality (Hackos, 2002). WSDL 2.0 is the most current version in use today. One of the key features of WSDL is that it can be used in combination with XML Schema and SOAP in order to provide web services through the use of the internet (Hackos, 2002). The second feature of WSDL is that it supports web services in other internet applications such as REST and thus it is easy to implement. Third, WSDL helps in the definition of web service and it helps in the definition of the operations that can be undertaken as well as definition of messages that can be applied or used to carry out a particular operation (Mackey, 2003). This is done through the Port Type. The WSDL service is composed of a number of system functions which are exposed to protocols that are web-based. The port or the endpoint of WSDL defines the connection point or the address to a web service. It is defined and represented by a simple URL or HTTP string (Mackey, 2003). REST or Representation State Transfer is defined as a style used in the architecture of software for systems such as World Wide Web. It is one of the approaches that can be used to deliver internet applications. One of the key features of REST is that it serves the purpose of describing the desired architecture of the web and it also helps in identifying the problems that exist in the web (Ritchie, 2002). The other feature is that it is implemented through interface generality, as well as through independent component deployment. Apart from the above approaches used for delivering internet applications, other architectures that can be used to deliver internet applications include Software as a service (SaaS) or on-demand software (Davis, 2003). It is a common approach for delivering business or internet applications that include collaboration, accounting, and enterprise resource planning and customer relationship management (Davis, 2003). The other architecture that could be used to deliver internet applications is the (AND) or the Application Delivery Network composed of technologies that provide security, application availability and acceleration of internet applications (Ritchie, 2002). 6.0 PLATFORMS FOR DEVELOPING WEB SERVICES One of the platforms for developing web services is My Web Services Platform. This increases the performance and reliability features which give rise to standard and powerful Web Services enterprise architecture. Important scalability and security features are also incorporated in My Web Services platform (Ritchie, 2002). The other platform used for developing web services is the J2EE 1.4 version (also called The Java 2 Platforms). One of the key similarities between the two platforms is that they offer numerous benefits such as scalability, no single-vendor lock-in, reliability and portability (Ritchie, 2002). The other similarity between the two platforms for delivering web services is that they provide database connections, transactions support and management of life cycles involving businesses processes as well as providing support for other scalable services and which do not require application developers’ codes. The other similarity is that in the development of web services using the two platforms XML based protocols and standards are required and thus the developer of web services must have adequate knowledge of XML protocols and standards. Additionally, the web service developer must also have affair amount of knowledge related to programming when using the two platforms. References Connolly, T. (2005). Database systems: a practical approach to design, implementation, and management - 4th ed. Harlow: Addison-Wesley. Davis, H. (2003). Project finance: practical case studies. London: Euromoney Books. Hackos, J. (2002). Content management for dynamic Web delivery. New York: Wiley Publishers. Mackey, D. (2003). Web security for network and system administrators. Boston, Mass: Course Technology. Ritchie, C. (2002). Relational database principles. 2nd ed. London: Continuum. Read More