Answers to a set of frequently asked questions about the Web services
enablement of the service integration bus.
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 are bus-enabled Web services?
Bus-enabled
Web services is a software component that enables your Web services to use
service integration technologies. Bus-enabled 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 do bus-enabled Web services enable your Web services?
You
can use bus-enabled 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 bus-enabled Web services?
Bus-enabled
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. Bus-enabled
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 bus-enabled 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.