Print this Page

Understanding and Applying Web Services
How XML-Based Loosely-Coupled Applications Work

Understanding and Applying Web Services introduces XML Web Services and explains how this loosely-coupled distributed computing architecture creates a potentially better way to use the web to connect application components, employ commonly used functions and access shared information.  This one-day seminar explores how the usage of APIs such as UDDI, WSDL and especially SOAP, coupled with the native HTTP web protocol and the power of XML content, can transform internal EAI and external application linkage.

Understanding and Applying Web Services uses non-technical terminology, business models and participative simulations to explain technical concepts, making this seminar suitable for non-technical management and business area learners as well as IT professionals.

Understanding and Applying Web Services compares the currently prevalent tightly-coupled EJB approach with the developing loosely-coupled XML Web Services strategy and discusses the pros and cons of each application architecture.  The course thoroughly examines promising opportunities for using XML Web Services to interoperate between architectures and demonstrates how to utilize XML Web Services to expose, wrap and provide access to legacy applications and data.

Understanding and Applying Web Services analyzes the many standards group, vendor and consortium initiatives through which XML Web Services continue to evolve- in fits and starts.  Participants will discuss and attempt to answer key strategic and long-term planning questions:

  • Will Microsoft dominate XML Web Services as a .NET implementation, or will IBM, Oracle, BEA and Sun succeed in generalizing Web Services as a true open architecture?  

  • Can competing vendors really hold to the base Web Services standards so that customers can interoperate freely, or will the vendors create proprietary standards “extensions” to differentiate their products?

  • Will Sun successfully evolve Java to implement the XML Web Services approach as native APIs?

  • Will the vendors solve the troubling security issues so that customers gain sufficient comfort to utilize Web Services externally to create enterprise applications?

Who Should Attend

  • IT and business area leaders who plan and influence application architectures & strategies

  • IT and business area staff who will design Web Services

  • Developers and Project Leaders who will build Web Services

What You Will Learn

What business problems do Web Services solve?

  • What’s a Web Service and why should you care?

  • What makes a Web Service different?

  • Why do we need Web Services?

  • How do Web Services fit into eBusiness?

How do you build a Web Service?

  • How do tightly-coupled & brokered EJBs work?

  • What’s wrong with tight-coupling?

  • How do loosely-coupled XML Web Services Work?

What are the XML Web Services APIs & how do they work?

  • What’s a Service Contract Language and why are they needed?

  • What are the XML Web Services APIs?

  • How do components find each other using UDDI, WS-Inspection and WSDL?

  • How do components work together using HTTP and SOAP?

  • Are Web Services secure?

What can Web Services do, really?

  • How can Web Services wrappers extend legacy applications?

  • How can Web services “orchestrate” disparate business processes to create collaborative applications?

  • Which vendors are doing what?

What are my choices & decisions?

  • Should you use J2EE or .NET to build your Web Services?

  • What are the performance issues?

  • What are the transaction integrity issues?

  • What should you do to get ready for Web Services?

Seminar Outline

Part 1: Web Service Definition & Philosophy

  • Simulation Demonstration

  • Example

  • Definitions

  • Business Problem

  • Business Justification

Part 2: Architecture Solutions

  • 1st Generation Architecture: Tight-Coupling

    • CORBA/EJBs

    • Tight-Coupling

  • 2nd Generation Architecture: Loose-Coupling

    • Microsoft .NET Framework & Web Services Architecture

  • XML Web Service APIs

    • Find: UDDI, WS-Inspection & WSDL

    • Connect: URL & HTTP

    • Transact: SOAP

  • Security: WS-Security & SAML

Part 3: Web Service Applications

  • Legacy Application Wrapping

  • Collaborative Applications

    • Orchestration Grammars

    • Vendors & Products

Part 4: Web Service Vendors, Strategies & Products

  • Microsoft vs. Sun vs. IBM vs. the world

  • Web Services & Application Hosting

  • Web Services Interoperability Organization (WS-I)

Part 5: Web Service Approach Issues & Options

  • XML Web Services vs. EJBs

  • Current & Future Realities

  • Internal vs. External Applications

  • Issues, Questions & Recommendations