Web services insider, Part 4: Introducing the Web services flow language (June 20) Workflow is the organization of processes into a well-defined flow of operations to fulfill a business need. IBM recently announced the release of a new XML grammar for defining software workflow processes within the framework of the Web services architecture. In this, the first of four discussions dedicated to the topic of workflow in Web services, I will introduce the fundamental concepts of the Web Services Flow Language, give you a quick tour of what it is, and what it is trying to accomplish. (contains sample code)
What's on the Web Services CD? (June 5) IBM is offering a free CD containing a selection of tools, examples, and articles for designing and developing Web services applications. This CD contains all the Web services applications that IBM has released to the public in addition to useful third-party tools that you may need. We will continue to provide updates to the CD through this page as newer versions of the software packages as well as other useful tools become available to the public.
Advancing SOAP interoperability (June 5) Over the past six months, there has been enormous progress in the area of interoperability between various implementations of the SOAP protocol for different platforms. In this article, Tony Hong examines some of the early interoperability changes faced by the SOAP toolkit implementors, and the steps taken by the developer community to tackle them.
Repurposing CGI Applications With SOAP (May 24) SOAP is a popular Web service protocol that can be used in a surprising number of ways, even for Web applications. This article demonstrates how to wrap an existing CGI application into a SOAP service. Additionally, we have a quick tour of HTML page scraping that will lead to a discussion of HTML::TreeBuilder. (contains sample code)
Web services insider, Part 3: Apache and Microsoft -- playing nice together (May 21) In this installment of the "Web Services Insider", James Snell shows that Apache and Microsoft can play nicely together by demonstrating how easy it is to consume Apache SOAP-based Web Services using the Microsoft SOAP Toolkit Beta 2. (contains sample code)
Role of private UDDI nodes, Part 2: Private nodes and operator nodes (May 15) Part one of this series introduced the topic of Web service discovery and examined six basic UDDI species. In this installment, Steve Graham contrasts the programming models associated with using a UDDI operator node and those models associated with using a private, non-operator node. He also discusses two kinds of additional API and related facilities: those that support interactions between different private UDDI nodes, and those that allow interoperability between private UDDI nodes and the UDDI operator cloud.
WebServices Test Area (May 15) The IBM WebServices Test Area is a live demo server created to give users a simple taste of how applications and components can operate as Web services. It allows users to browse some of the services that are in the IBM Test Registry. All you need is a Web browser to examine the visual components of these services. While these example services are not intended for business use, they show the kinds of services that might be useful to some business operations.
Role of private UDDI nodes in Web services, Part 1: Six species of UDDI (May 9) Steve Graham introduces the concepts behind Web services discovery and gives a brief overview of UDDI (Universal Description Discovery and Integration). He examines six variants of UDDI registries, highlighting the role each of these plays in a service-oriented architecture.
Using SOAP::Lite with Perl (May 1) Marrying SOAP, the darling protocol of the Web services world, to Perl, the grande dame of Web programming languages, is a natural fit. This article will present a no-nonsense approach to using SOAP::Lite, Perl's window into SOAP Web services. (contains sample code)
Python Web Services Developer, Part 3: Web services software repository, part 2 (May 1) Continuing their example of a Web service for storing and managing software, Uche Ogbuji and Mike Olson illustrate how to update the repository using SOAP messages, and how to advertise it as a Web service. (contains sample code)
Web services architect, Part 2: Models for dynamic e-business (April 24) Every emerging technology has to cross the chasm between innovation and acceptance. The technology adoption life cycle for Web services is no different. However, this technology does pertain to a different target audience of decision makers. Who are they? What will motivate them? Building on the vision of Dynamic e-business, this article explores the value proposition Web Service technologies offers to business entities in a variety of market segments.
Web services insider, Part 2: A summary of the W3C Web services workshop (April 24) Last week, the Web services insider attended the W3C's first Web Services Workshop targeted at exploring what direction the W3C should take to standardize the emerging Web services architecture. In this installment, he offers a brief summary of what was discussed.
Programming XML and Web services in TCL, Part 1: An initial primer (April 16) Tcl and XML make good partners. Tcl boasts several strengths for standalone XML processing. Moreover, in this article XML is presented as the initial building block in a series that describes the capacity for Tcl in Web services work.
Web services architect, Part 1: An introduction to dynamic e-business (April 5) Emerging technologies have played a strong role in the evolution of the Internet over the past five years. Java gave us portable code; portable data came with XML; and Pervasive Computing addressed the connectivity of any device. Now the hype surrounds Web services. In this series of articles, I will discuss the importance of this technology in developing the next generation of the Internet as well as describe the Web services strategy of IBM. Additionally, I will explore the business impact of Web services, how to identify a relevant solution opportunity, and how to evaluate the many vendor strategies building around this technology.
Web services insider, Part 1: Reflecting on SOAP (April 3) What is the current state of the "Web services revolution?" In this, the first installment of my new column titled "Web services insider," I'll answer this question by reviewing the tools and technologies that have emerged over the past year, highlighting their differences and similarities.
Using XML-RPC for Web services, Part 2: XML-RPC Middleware (March 26) Popular Web applications can often overwhelm the hardware resources that service them. By using Web services middleware, developers can create an application architecture that is divided into logical components connected through the middleware, making it easier to eliminate performance bottlenecks. This is done by simply adding better processing to the problem area. XML-RPC is a simple Web service protocol that takes the pain out of building middleware. (contains sample code)
Python Web services developer, Part 2: Web services software repository, Part 1 (March 13) This is the beginning of a short series on creating a software repository system built on Web services and developed in the Python programming language. Mike Olson shows you the details of using the 4Suite open-source XML server with Python to create Web service-based applications. (contains sample code)
Using XML-RPC for Web services, Part 1: Getting started with XML-RPC in Perl (March 6) Creating an XML-RPC Web service with Perl is almost as easy as CGI scripting. This article will bring you up to speed on what XML-RPC is and how to use Perl's Frontier::RPC library to create simple clients and servers. (contains sample code)
Web services (r)evolution, Part 4 (February 7) This article describes the Web Services Description Language (WSDL), an XML grammar for specifying properties of a Web service such as what it does, where it's located, and how to invoke it. It also introduces the IBM WSDL toolkit, which can generate stubs from WSDL and simplify the creation of Web services applications.
Python Web services developer, Part 1 (January 31) Python's motto has always been "batteries included," referring to the large array of standard libraries and facilities that come with the language installation. This article presents an overview and survey of tools and facilities available for Web services development in Python. This includes built-in Python features and third-party open-source tools.
UDDI4J: Matchmaking for Web services (January 25) As part of its continued commitment to Web services, IBM has released UDDI4J, an open-source Java implementation of the Universal Discovery, Description, and Integration protocol (UDDI). In this article, we'll discuss the basics of UDDI, the Java API to UDDI, and how you can use this technology to start building, testing, and deploying your own Web services. (contains sample code)
Web services (r)evolution, Part 3 (January 18) This article provides an explanation of how SOAP works, including information about its on-the-wire protocol and how messages are processed. It also explains how objects can be passed by value between Web services, and touches on performance and security issues. (contains sample code)
Applying Web services to the application service provider environment, Part 2 (January 16) Part 2 of this article continues my introduction to the architectural principles underlying Web services, and to some of the technologies supporting it. It completes the example of how this technology can be applied to an application service provider environment. (contains sample code)
Missing Link (January 16) The United Nation and the OASIS group have joined together as unlikely allies in the ongoing turf war over B2B standards. Offering a new set of XML-based specification, ebXML makes the bold promise to enable a single global electronic marketplace.
Applying Web services to the application service provider environment (January 9) The concept of Web services is creating a lot of excitement, but it is also creating a lot of questions about how to apply Web services to e-business. This article offers a brief introduction to the architectural principles underlying Web services, as well as some of the technologies that support them. This article primarily presents an example of how Web services can be applied to an application service provider environment. (contains sample code)
Web services (r)evolution, Part 2 (December 19) This article provides a step by step explanation of how to develop a Web service, including what tools you will need, how to install them, how to write the code, and how to deploy the service. It goes on to explain how to invoke other Web services from across the Internet. (contains sample code)
Creating target-rich environments in a service-oriented architecture (December 14) This article introduces and encourages the use of taxonomies for categorizing services in ways that make them easy to locate. We begin by describing the problem addressed by taxonomies and then introduce a scenario that requires one. We discuss the need for taxonomies from the perspective of service providers and requestors. We then create the requirements for an architecture to support categorization and a proposal on how this architecture will address these needs.
Web services Checkpoint (November 29) Rod Smith looks at how far Web services has come and outlines some of the coming plans for this technology from the developers working on the specifications and the software.
Web services (r)evolution, Part 1 (November 29) This opening article of our new column focuses on the benefits and challenges of building Web service applications. Web services may be an evolutionary step in designing distributed applications, however, they are not without their problems. Graham outlines the difficulties developers face in creating a truly workable distributed system of Web services. This article also outlines his plan for building peer-to-peer Web applications over the coming issues of this column.
WSDL processing with XSLT (November 29) Building on earlier articles introducing Web Services Description Language (WSDL) and an RDF application based on WSDL, this article shows ways of using Extensible Stylesheet Language for Transforms (XSLT) to process WSDL in various ways. Familiarity with XSLT and Resource Description Framework (RDF) are required. Resources introducing XSLT are provided. (contains sample code)
Energize e-business with Web services from the IBM WebSphere software platform (November 29) The IBM WebSphere software platform for e-business is evolving. It enables e-businesses to quickly extend existing applications to add Web services. If you need to get started, or transition your business, the WebSphere software platform provides the tools you need to discover, develop, and deploy Web services.
XML Protocol Working Group Draft Requirements (November 14) The W3C has released the draft requirements for XML Protocol WG. These requirements will determine how SOAP and other protocols are to interact with XML for transport, data encapsulation, data representation, translation, and binding. The working group will continue to develop this draft over time, so keep an active watch on this document if you are involved in implementing SOAP protocols.
Supercharging WSDL with RDF (November 14) The Resource Description Framework is the World Wide Web Consortium's official format for defining the metadata of XML objects. Conceptually, it is similar to Web Services Description Language, which is a collection of metadata about XML-based services. This article focuses on building a bridge between the two specifications. It provides an example of what a Web service description might look like as an RDF file. It then goes on to discuss how to take advantage of an RDF visualization tool to generate a graph of the WSDL data. Finally, it presents a portion of a possible RDF Schema for WSDL. (contains sample code)
The future of software: e-business software (November 3) This article describes the future path of Web services and applications towards an adaptive, dynamic, peer-to-peer application model. It describes how the future transactional Web can provide programmatic access to a company's business processes using Web services.
Announcing your Web Services through the Advertisement and Discovery of Services (ADS) Protocol (October 31) As you build more Web Services into your computing infrastructure, it may become a complex issue for your B2B partners to locate specific services. How do you advertise that a particular service is on a particular system? How do you announce to search engines the kind of information that you present on your site? The authors here present a new protocol that makes it easy to proactively announce Web Service information to visiting software agents of your B2B partners. (contains sample code)
Using WSDL in SOAP applications (October 31) Web Services Description Language (WDSL) is a new specification to describe networked XML-based services. It provides a simple way for service providers to describe the basic format of requests to their systems regardless of the underlying protocol (such as Simple Object Access Protocol or XML) or encoding (such as Multipurpose Internet Messaging Extensions). WSDL is a key part of the effort of the Universal Description, Discovery and Integration (UDDI) initiative to provide directories and descriptions of such on-line services for electronic business. This article provides a brief background and technical introduction to WSDL. Knowledge of XML and XML Namespaces is required and some familiarity with XML Schemas and SOAP is useful. (contains sample code)
The Tao of e-business services (October 31) The concept of Web services is the beginning of a new service-oriented architecture in building better software applications. The change from an object-oriented system to a service-oriented one is an evolutionary idea that sublimated from the global Internet and Web system. To understand how to build Web Services into your computing architecture, you need to carefully understand the role they play. This article details the software engineering concepts behind the Web Services architecture, how it has evolved, how it is structured, and how it can be brought into your existing computing infrastructure.
Web Services Description Language (WSDL) (September 26) WSDL is an XML format for describing network services as a set of endpoints operating on messages containing either document-oriented or procedure-oriented information. The operations and messages are described abstractly, and then bound to a concrete network protocol and message format to define an endpoint. Related concrete endpoints are combined into abstract endpoints (services). WSDL is extensible to allow description of endpoints and their messages regardless of what message formats or network protocols are used to communicate, however, the only bindings described in this document describe how to use WSDL in conjunction with SOAP 1.1, HTTP GET/POST, and MIME.
IBM Web Services architecture debuts (September 6) Introducing IBM's Web Services, a distributed software architecture of service components. This brief overview and in-depth interview cover the fundamental concepts of Web Services architecture and what they mean for developers. The interview, with IBM's Rod Smith, Vice President of Emerging Technologies, explores which types of developers Web Services targets, how Web Services reduce development time, what developers could be doing with Web Services now, as well as a glance at the economics of dynamically discoverable services.
Web services architecture overview (September 6) This article presents an overview of IBM Web Services architecture, including what Web Services are, the fundamental characteristics of a Web Services architecture, and the benefits of this approach.

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