Web Services CS-422

What are Web Services New breed of Web application –self-contained –self describing –modular once published –can be discovered –located –and invoked across the web application components

Web Services Platform Basic platform is XML and HTTP –HTTP is ubiquitous could be done with RMI, Jini, CORBA or DCOM but they aren’t everywhere the way HTTP is –middleware isn’t always interoperable HTTP and the Web are simple the Web is a great information distribution vehicle the Web is a good way to tie middleware tools together –HTTP wrappering has been around for a long time –CORBA has used it forever to work through firewalls

To fill out the platform –XML provides a metalanguage for –SOAP (remote invocation) –UDDI (trader, directory service) –WSDL (expression of service characteristics) –XLANG/XAML (transaction support) –XKMS (XML Key management) –XFS(Xmethods File System)

SOAP Simple Object Access Protocol defines a protocol for a uniform way of passing XML-encoded data, it also defines a way to perform remote procedure calls (RPCs) using HTTP as the underlying communication protocol the need for SOAP arises from the realization that the current middleware offerings, to be easy to use, need a WAN wrapper (HTTP) sending messages as XML can ensure interoperability –middleware vendors are willing to include the tools for parsing and serializing XML in order to scale their approaches to wider networks SOAP is currently under the care of W3C and is frozen until such time that the W3C deems changes necessary

SOAP Message Embedded in HTTP Request POST /StockQuote HTTP/1.1 Host: Content-Type: text/xml; charset="utf-8" Content-Length: nnnn SOAPAction: "Some-URI" <SOAP-ENV:Envelope xmlns:SOAP-ENV=" SOAP-ENV:encodingStyle=" DIS

SOAP Message Embedded in HTTP Response HTTP/ OK Content-Type: text/xml; charset="utf-8" Content-Length: nnnn <SOAP-ENV:Envelope xmlns:SOAP-ENV=" SOAP-ENV:encodingStyle=" 34.5

UDDI Universal Description, Discovery and Integration Service provides a mechanism for clients to dynamically find other web services –similar to a CORBA trader –think of it as a DNS service for business applications a UDDI registry has two kinds of clients –those that want to publish a service (and its usage interfaces) –those who want to obtain services of a certain kind and bind to them UDDI is layered over SOAP and assumes that requests and responses are UDDI objects send around as SOAP messages

UDDI Example The following query, when placed inside the body of the SOAP envelope, returns details on Microsoft. Microsoft

Returns... <businessList generic="1.0" operator="Microsoft Corporation" truncated="false" xmlns="urn:uddi-org:api"> <businessInfo businessKey="0076B468-EB27-42E5-AC CFF462A3"> Microsoft Corporation Empowering people through great software - any time, any place and on any device is Microsoft's vision. As the worldwide leader in software for personal and business computing, we strive to produce innovative products and services that meet our customer's <serviceInfo businessKey="0076B468-EB27-42E5-AC CFF462A3" serviceKey="1FFE1F71-2AF3-45FB-B788-09AF7FF151A4"> Web services for smart searching <serviceInfo businessKey="0076B468-EB27-42E5-AC CFF462A3" serviceKey="8BF2F51F-8ED4-43FE-B665-38D8205D1333"> Electronic Business Integration Services.

WSDL Web Services Definition Language provides a way for service providers to describe the basic format of web service requests over different protocols or encodings used to describe –what a web service can do –where it resides –how to invoke it UDDI registries describe many aspects of web services including the binding details. WSDL fits into the subset of a UDDI service description WSDL provides a template for how services should be describes and bound by their clients

WSDL (more…) WSDL defines services as collections of network endpoints or ports the abstract definition of endpoints and messages is separated from their concrete network deployment or data format bindings –this allows reuse of abstract definitions of messages which are abstract definitions of the data exchanged and port types which are abstract definitions of collections of operations a port is defined by associating a network address with a reusable binding, a collection of ports define a service

WSDL Element Types Types - a container for data type definitions using some system ( like XSD) Messages - an abstract, typed definition of data being communicated Operations - an abstract description of an action supported by the service Port Type - an abstract set of operations supported by one ot more endpoints Binding - a concrete protocol and data format specification for a particular port type Port - a single endpoint defined as a combination of a binding and a network address Service - a collection of related endpoints

Sample <definitions name="StockQuote" targetNamespace=" xmlns:tns=" xmlns:xsd1=" xmlns:soap=" xmlns=" <schema targetNamespace=" xmlns=" (cont.)

Sample (cont.) <binding name="StockQuoteSoapBinding" type="tns:StockQuotePortType"> <soap:binding style="document" transport=" <soap:operation soapAction=" <soap:body use="literal" namespace=" encodingStyle=" <soap:body use="literal" namespace=" encodingStyle="

XLANG Optional to the Web Services Platform Stands for eXtensible Language XLang is a notation for expressing the compensatory actions for any request that needs to be undone. The web services infrastructure can leverage XLang specifications to perform complex undo operations.

XAML Transaction Authority Markup Language provides a traditional two-phase commit transactional semantics over web services

XKMS XML Key Management Specification an effort by Microsoft and Verisign to integrate PKI and digital certificates (which are used for securing Internet transactions) with XML applications The key idea is to delegate the signature processing to a trust server on the Web, so that thin or mobile clients don't have to carry around the smarts to do all this themselves. XKMS relies on the XML Signature specification already being worked on by W3C and on anticipated work at W3C on an XML encryption specification.

XFS XMethods File System The XMethods filesystem service enables you to post and read files via a SOAP interface. This system enables developers to create services that utilize centralized, persistent data. Ideally, this type of filesystem can be used to centralize the storage of information which can be accessed by multiple nodes. –For example, one could use this space to support automatic patch updates. XFS provides a client tool that integrates the XFS web service into a Windows Explorer shell. Windows Explorer is then integrated with the XML-SOAP-based file system. XFS is an open-source initiative by xmethods.com, the momentum of which is unclear. However, the idea is technically attractive