Answers to a set of frequently asked questions about the Web services enablement of the service integration bus (SIBus).
What are Web services?
Web services are
modular applications that interact with one another across the Internet. Web
services are based on shared, open and emerging technology standards and protocols
(such as SOAP, UDDI, and WSDL) and can communicate,
interact, and integrate with other applications, no matter how they are implemented.
What is SIBus Web services?
SIBus Web services is a software component that enables your
Web services to use service integration technologies. SIBus Web services provides
a choice of quality of service and message distribution options for Web services,
along with intelligence in the form of mediations which allow for the rerouting
of messages.
How does SIBus Web services enable your Web services?
You can use SIBus Web services to achieve the
following goals:
- You can take an internally-hosted service that is available at a bus destination, and
make it available as a Web service.
- You can take an external Web service and make it available internally
at a bus destination.
- You can use the Web services gateway to map
an existing service - either an internally-hosted service or an external
Web service - to a new Web service that seems to be provided by the gateway.
What problems are solved by SIBus Web services?
SIBus Web services
solve the following problems:
- Securely "externalizing" existing services: Existing
business applications that are exposed as Web services can be used by any
Web service-enabled tool, regardless of the implementation details. SIBus Web services
also let you enable controlled access for clients from outside the firewall
to Web services that are hosted within your enterprise.
- Better return on investment: Any number of partners can
reuse an existing process that you deploy as a Web service.
- Use of existing infrastructure: You can use your existing
messaging infrastructure to make Web service requests, and use your existing
Web services for external process integration.
- Use of external Web services: You can make an existing external
Web service available to your internal systems at a bus destination.
Who should use SIBus Web services?
Any
enterprise that chooses to share its resources selectively with its business
partners and customers. IT managers and developers, who deploy resources,
can also benefit from this technology.