Web Services for Translation Workshop

1
Web Services for TranslationWorkshop

• Peter Reynolds, Kevin Bargary
• Ignite Conference Dublin, 2005

2
Workshop Agenda

• Introduction to the workshop/ Exploration of the
  issues we are going to look at
• The Translation Web Service standard
• Case studies LRC Implementation
• Putting Web Services into action
• Conclusion

3
Objectives

• Understanding of Web services
• What they are
• How they work
• Understanding of the Translation Web services TC
• The ideas behind a Web services standard for
  Translation
• How this Web services might work for your
  organisation
• Know why your organisation might want to use Web
  services and how to go about this
• Any Other objectives?

4
Introduction to the workshop/ Exploration of the
issues we are going to look at
2
5
Agenda for this session

• Why use Web services
• Introduction to Web services
• Discussion to agree scenarios we want to use Web
  services for.

6
The issues
Complex process

• Web site system
• Can comprise many technologies which have to be
  integrated
• File formats
• Many different file formats
• Complex localization process for some formats
• Transferring content
• System needs to be able to integrate

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The issues
Value and transparency
Complex process

• Value-for-money translation
• Translation purchasers under pressure to deliver
  greater efficiency
• Vendors need to deliver on speed, efficiency and
  quality and be seen to do this.
• Status information, Job tracking
• Tight deadlines
• Need to know files will be delivered on time
  within budget
• Quality assurance

8
The issues
Global brand Local relevance
Complex process
Value and transparency

• Global brands
• Valuable commodity becomes more valuable as a
  global brand and this must be managed
• Difficulties if each office in a local country
  does their own web site with its own distinctive
  look-and-feel
• Local relevance
• The reason for the web site to be localized is to
  communicate with that audience

9
The issues
Quality translation
Complex process
Value and transparency
Global brand Local relevance

• Translation involves negotiation
• There needs to be agreement on style, conventions
  and a process for deciding what is the correct
  translation when there are differences of opinion
• Context
• Translators need to be able to see the context
  for the translation
• Quality Tools
• Glossaries, Computer Aided Translation (CAT) tools

10
Web Services defined
World Wide Web

• User at browser interacts with web page
• Functionality defined by
• Need to use browser
• A person is interacting with the application or
  page
• Does not allow for automation

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Web Services defined

• Machine to machine interaction
• Uses Internet standards such as XML, HTTP, SOAP
• Allows for automation

12
Examples of web services

• Business Information with Rich Content
• weather reports, news feeds
• airline schedules
• stock quotes
• credit check, credit card validation
• Transactional Web Services for B2B or B2C
• airline reservations, car rental
• supply chain management
• purchase order

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Web Services - Technology

• HTTP
• Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP)
• web services clients communicate with the service
  server using standard HTTP
• XML
• Extensible Markup Language (XML)
• is used to carry the request and response
  parameters
• SOAP
• 'simple object access protocol (SOAP)
• is the specific encoding used to package the
  messages

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The Description And Discovery Standards

• WSDL
• 'web services description language'
• allows sharing of the description and interface
  mechanism of a web service
• new tools can even automatically generate
  clients!
• UDDI
• 'universal description, discovery and
  integration'
• created to facilitate the 'discovery' of services
  over the internet
• essentially a yellow pages for web services

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Web Services Standards Summary
Translation Customer
WEB
Translation Vendor
WEB
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Discussion Scenarios for using Web Services

• Dry cleaning scenario
• Documents gets sent to vendor, Documents get
  translated, Documents get returned to publisher.
• Use of TMs and other resources
• Associating TMs with the translation work using
  Web services
• Web services integration with glossaries and
  other tools
• Transfer of project data
• Data transferred between vendor and publisher
• Distributed Translation system
• Components of system in different locations being
  integrated using Web services

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Translation Web services
2
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Translation Web Services

• The publisher has the power to change vendor
• Open technologies such as XLIFF and Web Services
  ensure that control is with the customer
• Solutions can be built leveraging many services,
  vendors and technologies
• Solutions can scale and be easily adapted for
  future requirements
• Can reduce the cost of translation localization
  process

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A short history

• LRC Conference 2001
• Bill Lobby after a presentation on web services
  suggested people meet afterwards to discuss
  translation web services as a standard.
• IBM, Novell, LRC, Oracle, Bowne Global Solutions
  met
• Steering group
• IBM, Oracle, Star, LRC, Bowne Global solutions
  form steering group
• Looked at issues relating to forming a group, IPR
  and standards
• LRC Conference 2002
• Plan to form an Oasis TC was announced
• Oasis
• Oasis group formed in January 2003
• Current status
• Completion work on committee specification
• LRC completed test implementation

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Translation Web Service standard

• Concentrated on Client Co. / Vendor Co.
  interaction
• Set about defining a standard which allowed for
  translation to be carried on using web services.
• Main issues
• Defining standard
• Security
• Describing the data Content domains
• Future uses of web service in translation
  industry
• Vendor Co. / Translator interaction
• Glossaries
• TM Management
• Query/ Issue management

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Service support

• UDDI
• retrieveServiceList
• Ability for a customer to query services which
  are offered
• Provides definitions that can be used in job
  submission
• Language support
• Service types
• Source File types

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Translation and request quote

• requestQuote
• This is the point at which meaningful information
  about the job is needed by the system in order to
  estimate costs and return them to the user.
• retrieveQuote
• This call allows for the retrieval of the quote.
• acceptQuote
• Using the Job ticket a quote may be accepted,
  thereby initiating translation of the job.
• SubmitJob
• As an alternative to requestQuote acceptQuote,
  where a relationship already exists, or the cost
  is prepaid for all required translations, or
  perhaps the translation service is deployed
  in-house and is a MT engine, there may be a case
  to simply call translate as the quote/accept
  mechanism isn't required.

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Status, notification and delivery 1

• retrieveJobInformation
• This call allows the client to view the Job
  history for any particular job. This might be
  used together with retrieveActiveJobList to check
  the status of all jobs for the client and to
  download them when the status changes to
  complete. The status information uses the event
  element. This gives the status for each event
  that takes place when a job is being worked on.
• History, event elements used for status
  information.
• retrieveActiveJobslist
• This call allows for the client to retrieve a
  list of their jobs which are currently active.
  This can used together with retrieveJobInformation
  to get the current status on all active jobs.
• retrieveFullJobslist
• This is similar to the retrieveActiveJobsList
  above but retrieves a list of all jobs associated
  with a particular client whether or not they are
  active.

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Status, notification and delivery 2

• retrieveJob
• This call is a mechanism for downloading the
  translated file. It can be used in conjunction
  with the retrieveJobInformation call. When the
  job status has been changed to complete the
  retrieveJob call can be used to download the
  file.
• rejectJob
• This call is allows for the translation to be
  rejected if it is incomplete or requires
  correction. It also allows for feedback to be
  submitted.
• suspendJob
• The Client may request that any job being
  translated be suspended. This is a request only
  as the service cannot guarantee to comply with
  this immediately, depending on job-state etc. and
  there may still be a cost incurred. suspendJob
  will fail if translation is complete. The current
  job status should be returned also.

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Status, notification and delivery 3

• resumeJob
• The Client may request that a job which has been
  suspended is resumed. This is a request only as
  the service cannot guarantee to comply with this
  immediately, depending on job-state etc. and
  there may still be a cost incurred. The current
  job status should be returned also.
• cancelJob
• The Client may request that any job being
  translated be cancelled. This is a request only
  as the service cannot guarantee to comply with
  this immediately, depending on job-state etc. and
  there may still be a cost incurred. cancelJob
  will fail if translation is complete. The current
  job status should be returned also.

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Reference files

• associateResource
• This call allows for the association of a
  resource file such as translation memory or the
  URI for a glossary with a particular job. The
  same resource file can be associated with any
  number of jobs.
• disassociateResource
• This calls allows for the Client to end the
  association between a resource file and a
  particular job.
• retrieveResourceInformation
• This call allows for the information associated
  with a resource to be retrieved.
• retrieveResourceListforJobs
• The resource file can be associated with one or
  more jobs and this call allows for the Client to
  find which jobs is a particular resource file
  associated with. If a resource file is no longer
  to be used this call can be used to find a list
  of jobs associated with that resource and the
  disassociateResource call can be used to
  disassociate the resource with those jobs.

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Security

• Web Service Security
• Oasis TC looking at issues of security and web
  services
• Building on work done by Microsoft and IBM in
  their WS Security specification
• Username / Password or X509 certificate required
• SSL certificate required

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LRC test implementation Case Studies
2
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Translation Web Services LRC Project

• IMPLEMENTATION
• Why
• What
• How
• ISSUES ENCOUNTERED
• LESSONS LEARNT
• DEMO
• Showing the specification in action

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Translation Web Services Implementation

• Project Overview
• Aim
• Technologies Used
• AXIS
• Java
• Java Server Pages (JSP)
• Apache Tomcat
• Web Services
• Development Process
• www.electonline.org/axis
• Implementation Limitations

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Translation Web Services Issues Encountered

• First implementation problems
• retrieveQuote allows for retrieval of quote
• No quote information returned
• retrieveResourceInformation retrieveFullResource
  Information
• Not in schema descriptions
• Some teething problems regarding naming
  conventions but on the whole nothing too
  problematic.

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Translation Web Services Lessons Learnt

• Potential for TWS
• Automation of processes
• Possible working scenarios for the specification
• Need good Technical Committee support and
  flexibility
• Willingness to allow changes to the specification
  if required
• Willingness to make changes
• Willingness to support any work being done

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Elcano web services overview
Web site management system
XLIFF sent to Elcano
Content management system/ Database
Content management system
XLIFF returned after translation
Web site
Web services used to integrate the web site
management system and Elcano.
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Components and approach

• Components of system
• XLIFF
• Web Services
• Elcano Online translation service from BGS
• BGS infrastructure
• BGS approach
• Owner of the content should have control over it,
  including the ability to change translation
  vendor
• Open technologies such as XLIFF and Web Services
• Actively work with competitors and customers to
  develop and promote open localization standards
• Early adaptation of these technologies

35
Translation Web Services

• Allows for the benefits of automation and
  integrating systems
• The publisher has the power to change vendor
• Open technologies such as XLIFF and Web Services
  ensure that control is with the customer
• Solutions can be built leveraging many services,
  vendors and technologies
• Solutions can scale and be easily adapted for
  future requirements
• Can reduce the cost of translation localization
  process

36
Translation Web Services
Low integration efforts
Integration
Vendor Independance
Manual overheads reduction, quality
OpenStandards
Automation
FlexibleSolutions
Cost,Time
Reduce cost, turnaround time
Leverage services, technologies, vendors
Scalability
Easy to scale and future proof
37
Elcano web services overview
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Putting Web services into action
2
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Putting web services into action

• Scenarios we could us Web services for
  Translation
• Submitting a TM
• Retrieving translated documents

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Conclusion
2
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Using Web services

• Web services offers great potential for our
  industry
• Networked and distributed industry
• Challenge to constantly improve how we work
• Web service technology
• Uses standards web based technology
• Community of users to provide support
• Technology relatively easy to implement
• Enables integration and automation

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Translation Web services standard

• Completion and rollout of specification
• Translation Web services TC needs to be more
  representative of industry.
• Is there a need for a specific Web service for
  the translation and localisation industry
• Use of Web services and XML vocabularies as XLIFF
  provide significant benefits of using standards

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Any Questions

• Thank you,
• Peter Reynolds, Kevin Bargary
• Peters email peter.reynolds_at_bowneglobal.ie
• Phone [phone]
• Kevins email Kevin.Bargary_at_ul.ie