Web Service and Application Servers

Author: Vivek Sinha Date: January 2006

Web Service
According to W3C, web service is a software system designed to support 1 interoperable machine-to-machine interaction over a network (generally the World Wide Web) Web Service typically uses Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP).
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Interoperability is the capability of different programs to exchange data.

Web Service - Evolution

Over the time, software applications grew from large mainframe applications (e.g., Cardpac, VisionPlus) to client-server (e.g., SQL Server) to applications which can be used over the Web (http://spreadsheets.google.com). These Web applications break down the larger software system into smaller modular components, or shared services. These applications are packaged and transported using standard Web protocols, such as XML and HTTP, thus making them easily accessible by any user on the Web.

Web Service - Benefits

Interoperability among applications that span diverse hardware and software platforms Easy and widespread access over the Web. Cross Platform and Cross Language implementation using an XML based description language. Web Services communicate with clients (both end-user applications or other Web Services) through XML messages that are transmitted by standard Internet protocols, such as HTTP.

Tightly Coupled and Loosely Coupled Applications

A tightly coupled application integrates all enterprise applications around a single RDBMS A loosely coupled applications integrates with each other using explicit requirements, e.g, XML, SOAP etc. Web services use loose coupling

Web Service Standards

Protocol Stack is a collection of computer networking protocols. It consists of the following
Service Transport This includes protocols like HTTP, SMTP, FTP etc. XML Messaging This is used for encoding messages in a common XML format Service Description Used to describe public interface for the service used Service Discovery A service to list business on Internet

eXtensible Markup Language (XML) is general purpose markup language

Web Service Standards contd.

Web Service Security (WS-Security) is protocol used for applying security

Web Service - Deployment

Web Services can be deployed using an Application Server.
BEA WebLogic IBM Lotus Domino IBM WebSphere JBoss (with Tomcat) Microsoft .NET servers Oracle Application Server Sun One (iPlanet)

Web Service - Deployment contd.

Application Server is a software application which is used to run Web Portals Web Server is used to display web pages using HTTP protocol A web server is generally a part of the application server An application server contains the business logic which can be used by a Graphical User Interface (GUI) application, web server or other application servers

Thanks!
Author: Vivek Sinha Date: January 2006