Web Services Platform Architecture
The Insider's Guide to Building Breakthrough Services with Today's New Web Services Platform. Using today's new Web services platform, you can build services that are more secure, more reliable, more efficient at handling transactions, and better suited for your evolving service-oriented architecture. What's more, you can do all that without compromising the simplicity or interoperability that made Web services so attractive. Now, for the first time, the IBM experts who helped define and architect this platform show you exactly how to make the most of it.
Unlike other books, Web Services Platform Architecture covers the entire platform--not just SOAP, WSDL, and UDDI. The authors illuminate every specification that's ready for practical use, covering messaging, metadata, security, discovery, quality of service, business process modeling, and more. Drawing on realistic examples and case studies, they present a powerfully coherent view of how all these specifications fit together—and how to combine them to solve real-world problems.
- Service orientation: Clarifying the business and technical value propositions
- Web services messaging framework: Using SOAP and the new WS-Addressing delivery mechanism
- WSDL: Documenting messages and supporting diverse message interactions
- WS-Policy: Building services that can specify what they expect and how to interface with them
- UDDI: Aggregating metadata and making it easily available
- WS-MetadataExchange: Bootstrapping efficient, incremental communication between Web services
- WS-ReliableMessaging: Ensuring message delivery across unreliable networks
- Transactions: Defining reliable interactions with WS-Coordination, WS-AtomicTransaction, and WS-BusinessActivity
- Security: Understanding the roles of WS-Security, WS-Trust, WS-SecureConversation, and WS-Federation
- BPEL: Modeling business processes and composing services
- The future of Web services and service oriented architectures
Web Services Platform Architecture gives you an insider's view of the platform that will change the way you deliver applications. Whether you're an architect, developer, technical manager, or consultant, you'll find it indispensable.
Review By: Mark L. Johns
07/08/2010The authors of "Web Services Platform Architecture" have done an exceptional job covering a potentially complex topic. They introduce the topic from a level that can be understood by most programmers and testers. By the end of the book, one should have a good, practical knowledge of messaging frameworks, metadata, and security--as it relates to Web services.
The authors effectively use charts, flowcharts, and code snippets to illustrate their points. Their code examples are easy to follow and enhance the learning experience, and prepare the coder or tester for the applications they are creating and/or testing. The authors also help the reader understand the logical progression of "building" the knowledge model by using a hierarchical stack chart. The chart simplifies visualization of the relationships and layers in the Web services framework.
The main text of the book contains two practical examples that are used to support the concepts and put a "real world" face on how Web services architecture can be utilized. The examples used--Cart Parts Supply Chain and Ordering Service Packs--are fully developed from the conceptual aspect. This text stands out from the rest because of its many coding examples.
"Web Services Platform Architecture" distinctly clarifies an area of software development that is seen as complicated by many developers and testers. This approach demystifies Web services by covering only the important information and leaving out unnecessary details--one of the main strengths of the book. The authors do not expound their mastery of this topic. Instead this book is a concise and usable "manual" on using Web services.
Both developers and software testers will benefit from working through this book. Once they have completed it, testers will be able to design more effective tests and will be better able to debug any errors found. Using the information and techniques outlined in this book will lead developers to a standardized basis of delivering solutions.