Me:

1
Welcome

• Me
• Glen Daniels, Sonics standards guy
• W3C work SOAP, WSDL
• Soapbuilders, WS-, etc.
• JSRs
• Coauthor of Building Web Services with Java
  from Sams
• You
• Interested developers, managers
• Some familiarity with Web services

2
Our Path for the Next 45 min

• Interop defined
• Web Services Overview
• History
• State of the World
• Futures
• Q A

3
This Is Interoperability (in the US)
4
So Is This
Adapter
5
This Isnt Interoperability
Je ne comprenez-vous pas, aimez-vous un sandwich?
Ich möchte ein Buch kaufen, bitte!
?
(please excuse any translation errors I just
used BabelFish!)
6
...But This Is
Do you speak English?
Yes! Can I help you?
I would like to buy a book please!
Im sorry, this is a sandwich shop!
Oh! How about a pastrami on rye, then?
7
Interoperability Stack

• Transport (addressing, data flow)
• Syntax (data format)
• Data (types)
• Protocol (communication behavior)
• Semantics (meaning)

8
Overview of Web Services

• We all want our software to talk
• CORBA, RMI, DCE, COM, DCOM, EDI...
• Why cant we all just get along?
• XML was gaining good uptake as common data format
• HTTP obviously works pretty well ?
• Enter SOAP!
• XML framework for an interoperable and extensible
  messaging protocol over HTTP

9
The Web Services Stack

• Messaging (transport)
• SOAP, Extensions for QoS, Security, etc.
• Description (metadata and tooling)
• WSDL, Policy, RDF
• Directories (discovery)
• UDDI

10
Toolkits

• You often dont deal with SOAP directly

OpenEdge
Platform2
.NET
Platform1
SOAPMessage
Toolkit2
Toolkit1
11
SOAPs Extensibility Model
Envelope
Header
Extension
Body
My Data
12
SOAPs Extensibility Model
Envelope
Header
Decryption Info
Weather
Mandatory!
Body
Encrypted Data
13
WSDL Design-Time Metadata

• I use these data types
• You send me this, and Ill send you that
• Im reachable via SOAP at http//...
• I need you to use these extensions
• My phone is....

14
So Did It Work?

• Kind of
• Big players all on board!
• Lots of XML interop, HTTP connectivity
• But...
• Not all specs developed together
• Early specs unclear, proprietary
• Early implementations didnt always work together

15
Paths To Interop

• Standards
• Grassroots (SOAPBuilders)
• Interop summits workshops
• WS-I

16
What are Standards Anyway?

• The wonderful thing about standards...
• is that there are so many to choose from!
• --unattributed

17
Web Services Standards Bodies

• IETF (protocols, HTTP, TCP, DNS)
• W3C (XML, HTML, SOAP, WSDL)
• OASIS (ebXML, WS-Security, extensions)
• WS-I (Profiles)
• others...

18
Do Standards Help?

• YES, but...
• We dont always get it right the first time
• Some standards are unclear
• Some standards die on the vine (WS-Routing)
• Be careful about choosing
• Whos behind it (wide acceptance)
• IP concerns
• Technology quality
• Make sure its fully baked

19
SOAPBuilders

• Yahoo group to promote testing and interop for
  SOAP developers
• Grassroots organization
• Several rounds of testing, both online and
  face-to-face interops
• Lots of work done fast. First RPC services, then
  WSDL, then doc/lit...
• More than 30 stacks participate (has yours?)

20
Developer Get-togethers Are Great

• SOAPBuilders
• Microsoft / IBM
• WS- (Security, ReliableMessaging, etc)
• W3C
• SOAP 1.2 (2002)
• WSDL 2.0 (2004)
• Help find problems in specs as well as problems
  in implementations
• Find problems before the users do!

21
WS-I (Web Services Interop Org)

• Private consortium ( to join)
• Profiles, not standards
• Basic Profile 1.0 out now
• Test suite w/ sample application
• Process is a bit heavy/slow
• Lots of apparent commitment

22
Where Are We Now?

• Basic stuff works great - lots of interoperable
  SOAP-over-HTTP engines
• SOAP 1.1, WSDL 1.1, XML Schema
• Basic types mostly just work
• Strings, integers, dates, floats, etc.
• Arrays / collections
• Security via HTTPS mostly just works
• WS-I BP? Jury is still out....

23
What Isnt There Yet?

• Fancy XML, data types arent solid yet
• .NET DataSet
• No interoperable Hashtable / Recordset
• ...or you can use raw XML
• Extensions arent solid yet
• Transactions, Reliability
• Anything but request-response (i.e. async) isnt
  solid yet

24
WS Interoperability Stack Today

• Transport (HTTP, SMTP, JMS, etc)
• Syntax (XML)
• Data (Schema, WSDL)
• Protocol (SOAP, WS- extensions)
• Semantics (WSDL extensions, Policy, RDF)

25
The Stack is Coming Together

• Functional choices for high-level stuff within a
  year or two
• But....
• Be careful of spec silos...

26
Interoperability vs. Extensibility

• If everyone did the same exact things...
• Wouldnt it all just work?
• Sure, until you need something else...
• Then you have to go rebuild everything again!
• Extensibility allows agility and new developments
  in your current framework...
• but at a cost. If youre using a brand new
  extension you might not be interoperable with
  too many other folks unless they catch up
• This is a key tradeoff

27
The Answer...?

• Balance interop with extensibility
• Future-proof toolkits with pluggable
  architecture
• This doesnt mean you have to do it all yourself,
  just that your vendor can give you plugins
  without a whole new infrastructure

28
Lessons Learned, and Dreams Grounded

• Were not there yet
• The technology has some great potential
• A lot works now, but more later
• Balance interop and extensibility
• In the meanwhile...

29
How Progress/Sonic Gets You There

• We track this stuff
• We participate in the design of this stuff
• We are committed to building this stuff
• and making it easy for you to use
• Integration is our world
• Still going to need integration to deal with
  impedance mismatches

30
In Summary

• Web Services are about interoperability
• Basic stuff works today
• OpenEdge 10
• ESB
• More coming down the line

31
Related Courses

• The following Progress courses cover related
  subject matter.  Please visit www.progress.com/edu
  cation for course descriptions and relevant
  curriculum maps.
• XML Essentials
• 4GL Development with XML
• Consuming Web Services from OpenEdge

32
Questions?