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Web Services: Building Blocks for Distributed Systems

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Web Services: Building Blocks for Distributed Systems

Book

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Description

  • Copyright 2002
  • Edition: 1st
  • Book
  • ISBN-10: 0-13-066256-9
  • ISBN-13: 978-0-13-066256-9

The first practical, hands-on guide to building Web services!

Web services are the next breakthrough in distributed computing—enabling any organization to make its digital assets available worldwide with unprecedented ease and convenience. Now, one of the field's leading experts has written the definitive guide to delivering standards-based Web services. Graham Glass presents insights and hands-on examples encompassing every core Web services technology—and offers state-of-the-art guidance for ensuring interoperability amongst leading platforms. Coverage includes:

  • The key advantages of Web services: interoperability, ubiquity, industry support, and low barriers to entry
  • How SOAP is used for web services communications
  • Using Web Services Description Language (WSDL), the new XML grammar for describing Web services
  • UDDI concepts, API, inquiry, and publishing, plus techniques for creating fluid, dynamically-assembled systems
  • Building Web services using the J2EE and .NET platforms
  • Integrating J2EE and .NET Web services: a complete mini-project
  • The future of Web services: P2P, emerging standards, and more
CD-ROM INCLUDED

The CD-ROM contains GLUE Standard Edition, an intuitive, easy-to-use, 100% Java Web services platform based entirely on open standards. GLUE's rich set of features includes an embedded web server, servlet engine, SOAP processor, XML parser, graphical console, dynamic WSDL generator, dynamic Java/XML mapping, UDDI client and XML persistent storage system. GLUE ships as a single 450K JAR file that can be embedded into almost any application—and, best of all, GLUE Standard Edition is FREE for most commercial uses!

Sample Content

Table of Contents

(NOTE: Each chapter concludes with a Summary, Quiz, and Exercises.)

Preface.


Introduction.


1. Web Services.

What is a Web Service? The Evolution of Software Services. SOAP. WSDL. UDDI. Web Services Adoption. Web Services in Action. Challenges. A Science Fiction Kind of Future?



2. Hands-On Web Services.

Your First Web Service. Sniffing SOAP. Browsing Web Services. Aggregation. Exchanging XML Documents.



3. Web Services Description Language (WSDL).

The Anatomy of WSDL. Browsing Third-Party Web Services. Consuming Third-Party Web Services. Modularizing WSDL.



4. Mapping Between Native Data Structures and XML.

Overview. Primitives. Arrays. User-Defined Types. Any Type. Object Graphs. User-Defined Mappings. Custom Types.



5. Security.

HTTPS. HTTP Basic Authentication. SOAP Security Extensions.



6. Universal Description, Discovery and Integration (UDDI).

Scenarios. Entities. The UDDI API. UDDI Registries. Inquiring. Publishing. The Future of UDDI.



7. J2EE Web Services.

Overview. Installing J2EE. Publishing J2EE Web Services. Consuming J2EE Web Services. Consuming Web Services from J2EE.



8. .NET Web Services.

Overview. Installing .NET. Publishing .NET Web Services. Consuming .NET Web Services. Consuming Web Services from .NET. Complex Data Types and .NET.



9. Multiplatform Interoperability.

Overview. The .NET Credit Check Service. The J2EE Shipping Service. The GLUE Purchasing Service. The GLUE Client. Using UDDI.



10. P2P and the Future of Web Services.

The Trend Toward Decentralization. Peer-to-Peer Computing. Peer-To-Peer Web Services. An Electric Mind. Promising Insights. Beyond P2P.



Epilogue.


Appendix.

Installing GLUE and the Examples. Resources.



Index.

Preface

Introduction

It seems like only yesterday that I was sitting behind a computer terminal writing my first book for Prentice Hall. The book, titled UNIX for Programmers and Users, was released in 1993 and is still going strong. During that period, I was getting involved in distributed computing for the first time, and wrote simple C programs that used sockets to send data back and forth on a network. My first experience of network programming was so exciting and powerful that I decided to dedicate the last chapter of my UNIX book to a concept called The Grid, a term that I gave to a pervasive global network linking all computers, from mainframes to cell phones. Here is one of my favorite quotes from the book:

"Home appliances, cars, industrial robots and other machines will all be part of the Grid. In other words, everything will talk to everything. Resources and their interconnectivity will be greater than ever before. The theme of the 21st century will be collaboration."

Because the chapter was a bit off topic, and the Internet was virtually unknown in 1993, Prentice Hall removed it from the second edition of the book. Funnily enough, the quote is now perfect for this introduction to my new book on web services-a technology that is sweeping the computing industry and will forever change the way we think about distributed systems.

It gives me great pleasure to continue what I started to write all those years ago, and to provide you with a good understanding of the next logical step in the evolution of distributed computing.

Sincerely,
Graham Glass
August 2001

How to Use This Book

The chapters progress naturally from web services basics to futuristic advanced stuff.

Chapter 1 provides an introduction to web services and describes the main concepts and terms. It's a great way to get acquainted with the topic, and can be used as a stand-alone primer before going to a web services presentation or conference.

To get hands-on experience, proceed to Chapter 2 which guides you through the process of building and invoking a simple web service. This chapter also shows you how to access and manage web services from a web browser, as well as perform common tasks such as aggregation.

Once you've seen how easy it is to create a web service, you'll want to read Chapters 3 through 6, which cover more advanced topics such as Web Services Description Language (WSDL), security and Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration (UDDI). Each of these topics is explained with the help of hands-on examples.

Chapters 7 through 9 show how the popular .NET and Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) platforms support web services, and how you can build systems that incorporate web services written using both of these technologies.

The final chapter offers a glimpse of where web services is going, with a discussion of the trend toward decentralization and peer-to-peer computing.

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