Java Web Services Tutorial

WEB services, in the general meaning of the term, are services offered via the Web. In a typicalWeb services scenario, a business application sends a request to a service at a given URL using the SOAP protocol over HTTP. The service receives the request, processes it, and returns a response. An often-cited example of aWeb service is that of a stock quote service, in which the request asks for the current price of a specified stock, and the response gives the stock price. This is one of the simplest forms of a Web service in that the request is filled almost immediately, with the request and response being parts of the same method call.

Another example could be a service that maps out an efficient route for the delivery of goods. In this case, a business sends a request containing the delivery destinations, which the service processes to determine the most cost-effective delivery route. The time it takes to return the response depends on the complexity of the routing, so the response will probably be sent as an operation that is separate from the request.

Web services and consumers of Web services are typically businesses, making Web services predominantly business-to-business (B-to-B) transactions. An enterprise can be the provider of Web services and also the consumer of other Web services. For example, a wholesale distributor of spices could be in the consumer role when it uses a Web service to check on the availability of vanilla  beans and in the provider role when it supplies prospective customers with different vendors’ prices for vanilla beans.

The Role of XML and the Java™ Platform

Web services depend on the ability of parties to communicate with each other even if they are using different information systems. XML (Extensible Markup Language), a markup language that makes data portable, is a key technology in addressing this need. Enterprises have discovered the benefits of using XML for the integration of data both internally for sharing legacy data among departments and externally for sharing data with other enterprises. As a result, XML is increasingly being used for enterprise integration applications, both in tightly coupled and loosely coupled systems. Because of this data integration ability,  XML has become the underpinning for Web-related computing.

Web services also depend on the ability of enterprises using different computing platforms to communicate with each other. This requirement makes the Java™ platform, which makes code portable, the natural choice for developing Web services. This choice is even more attractive as the new Java APIs for XML become available, making it easier and easier to use XML from the Java programming language. These APIs are summarized later in this introduction and explained in detail in the tutorials for each API.

In addition to data portability and code portability, Web services need to be scalable, secure, and efficient, especially as they grow. The Java™2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE™), is specifically designed to fill just such needs. It facilitates the really hard part of developing Web services, which is programming the infrastructure, or “plumbing.” This infrastructure includes features such as security, distributed transaction management, and connection pool management, all of which are essential for industrial strength Web services. And because components are reusable, development time is substantially reduced. Because XML and the Java platform work so well together, they have come to play a central role in Web services. In fact, the advantages offered by the Java APIs for XML and the J2EE platform make them the ideal combination for deploying Web services.

The APIs described in this tutorial complement and layer on top of the J2EE APIs. These APIs enable the Java community, developers, and tool and container vendors to start developing Web services applications and products using standard Java APIs that maintain the fundamental Write Once, Run Anywhere™ proposition of Java technology. The Java Web Services Developer Pack (Java WSDP) makes all these APIs available in a single bundle. The Java WSDP includes JAR files implementing these APIs as well as documentation and examples. The examples in the Java WSDP will run in the Tomcat container (included in the Java WSDP to help with ease of use), as well as in a J2EE container once the Java WSDP JAR files are installed in the J2EE SDK. Instructions on how to install the JAR files on the J2EE SDK are available in the Java WSDP documentation at <JWSDP_HOME>/docs/jwsdponj2ee.html.

The remainder of this introduction first gives a quick look at XML and how it makes data portable. Then it gives an overview of the Java APIs for XML, explaining what they do and how they make writing Web applications easier. It describes each of the APIs individually and then presents a scenario that illustrates how they can work together.