Author: Jay Lee
Contributed by eBI Solutions LLC

What can Web Services do for my business?

Unfortunately, there is no complete correct answer to this question. Though the growth and adoption of Web Services in business hinges upon the convergence of a “generally accepted” set of industry standards, today’s myriad of overlapping, and sometimes divergent, standards do not help this cause.

The following pages will outline some basic concepts, and entertain a few simple questions, to help you form a more coherent view of Web Services.  The goal of this paper will be to help place your organization at the beginning of a roadmap to successful adoption of Web Services as part of your application integration strategy.

What are Web Services?

The “executive elevator pitch”

“Web Services” technology defines a new strategy of application integration which uses the tried and true transport technology, HTTP, and widely accepted data formatting standard (XML) with which to:

a)      Build self-contained business functions and services

b)      Access business functions within existing enterprise systems, and in within partner organizations.

There exist today a powerful, yet “organic” grassroots movement to construct open standards in an effort to forge a common language with which organizations can communicate and interact with each other.

Beyond the hype of the technology itself, “Web Services” is a mix of standards and processes with which to employ already widely adopted technologies (HTTP, XML) as a means for translating and transporting business data while leveraging the investments in business functionality that exist within internal business systems. The standards-based nature of Web Services provides the investment protection to mitigate the risks inherent to adopting new technologies.

The Reach of Web Services

Though its concept remains simple, Web Services will be an enabler of many new and existing business and computing concepts such as Grid Computing, EAI, and Business Process Management/Integration. Business value from such services, which require a distributed computing architecture, can more easily be realized within and between enterprises.

The “layers” of Web Services standards

The sheer number of Web Services standards and protocols in use today can make it difficult to understand where they all fit into the big picture. It is easiest to classify Web Services standards into one of five “layers” of the protocol stack (for those of you with backgrounds in network management, this is similar to the OSI 7-layer reference model)

Web Services - Definition

What are the limitations of First Generation Web Services?

Competing standards

There are both “Top-Down” efforts to standardize Web Services protocols, the frameworks of which are governed by large organizations, and “Bottom-Up efforts which are “grassroots” movements to standardize Web Services. There are advantages to both, and it will take years  before standards converge to a universally accepted set.

If your organization can benefit from the capabilities of Web Services, don’t wait for a convergence, or a perfect set, of standards. Even with standards in flux, there’s much to gain in leveraging Web Services within your organization. Be sure to understand the implications of being locked into a standard.  Example; Your largest partners impose different Web Services standards on their partners, leaving you with no choice but to conform to theirs. If possible, design or select Web Services solutions, which are flexible enough to accommodate multiple standards, or are open enough to grow with changing requirements in the foreseeable future.

Few, if any, “complete packages of products” are available today

In order to ensure that your organization’s web services infrastructure provides a complete solution, you must ensure that each of the following factors are addressed in selection process of each piece of your Web Services strategy:

Where will Web Services fit into my organization’s IT strategy?

Figure 3: Using Web Services for Enterprise Application Integration (EAI)
and Business-to-Business (B2B) interactions.  

EAI (Enterprise Application Integration) tools of the past have addressed this problem with proprietary connectors and adapters which require additional coding using each particular vendor’s API’s. This leads to code, which may not be readily reused by other systems you wish to integrate. Many e-business products and solutions employ EAI tools, while also providing the tools to facilitate communication with partner organizations (B2B - “Business-to-business” interactions).

Web Services provides a more open interface with which you can expose the functionality of your isolated applications to applications used in other departments within your organization or to select partners with whom B2B automation would make sense.

Figure 4: A Self-Contained Web Service
providing service, data, or intangible products to customers.  

Web Services technology can also be used as a foundation for “self-contained” business functions (rather than as just a means to integrate functionality of pre-existing systems).  

You may choose to build such a service from the ground up as an intangible product, service, or data offering. Open standards ensure that prospective customers can easily communicate with your Web Service without acquisition of proprietary Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) or Software Development Kits (SDKs).

Why adopt Web Services?

How should my organization adopt Web Services?

Define a Vision

Build a Roadmap

Act!

Commonly used Web Services acronyms  

 

Web Services Layer	Term /Acronym	Definition
Network	TCP/IP	Transmission Control Protocol / Internet Protocol The Communications protocol used on the Internet.
Transport	HTTP HTTPS HTTPR	Hypertext Transport Protocol Secure Hypertext Transport Protocol Reliable Hypertext Transport Protocol
	DIME	Direct Internet Message Transport
Packaging	SOAP	Simple Object Access Protocol
	SOAP-DSIG	SOAP Digital Signatures (Security Extension of SOAP)
	SWA	SOAP messages With Attachments
	WS-License	Web Services License Language
	WS-Referral	Web Services Referral Protocol - enables routing strategies for SOAP message paths
	WS-Routing	Web Services Routing Protocol
	WS-Security	Web Services Security Language - enables secure Web Services interaction, facilitating credential exchange, message integrity, and message confidentiality
Description	WSDL	Web Services Description Language
	WSCL	Web Services Conversation Language
	WSCM	Web Services Component Model
	WSEL	Web Services Endpoint Language
	WSFL	Web Services Flow Language
	WSML	Web Services Meta Language
	WSXL	Web Services Experience Language
	WSUI	Web Services User Interface
	XLANG	Web Services for Business Process Design
Discovery	UDDI	Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration
	USML	USSI Search Markup Language
	WS-Inspection	Web Services Inspection Language