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.