uCosminexus Application Server Overview

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4.3.7 Web Services

Web Services exchange the information between systems by using Web technologies and is a mechanism for enabling the use of applications of other systems on the Web. An application that can be released and executed through a network, by using the mechanism of a Web Service is also called a Web Service. You can execute SOAP Web Services and RESTful Web Services with Application Server.

SOAP Web Services use a protocol called SOAP to exchange messages. The HTTP protocol is used in the lower transport layer of the SOAP protocol. Application Server executes the binding among SOAP messages, SOAP Web Services, and Web Service clients according to the JAX-WS specifications.

RESTful Web Services directly use the GET and POST methods of the HTTP protocol, to exchange messages. Application Server executes the binding among HTTP messages and RESTful Web Services according to the JAX-RS specifications. An execution environment that can serve as the server of RESTful Web Services is required for using Web Services. You can build this execution environment with Application Server. You can develop a client for RESTful Web Services by using either client APIs or the standard Java APIs for RESTful Web services.

The following figure shows an overview of the Web Services usage environment.

Figure 4-9 Overview of Web Services usage environment

[Figure]

For the environments used by Web Services, the execution environment of the Web Services client and the execution environment of the Web Services server are mandatory. Both these execution environments can be built with Application Server.

The execution environment (client of Web Services) that has received the requests from the users of the Web client sends SOAP messages (for SOAP Web Services) or HTTP messages (for RESTful Web Services) to the execution environment that provides Web Services (server of Web Services). The Web Services server executes the process, and sends the result to the Web service client as a response. The Web Services use the SOAP protocol (for SOAP Web Services) or HTTP protocol (for RESTful Web Services) for the communication between the clients and the server of Web Services.

For details on these functions, see the Application Server Web Service Development Guide.

Reference note
You can develop and execute Web Services by using the existing SOAP application development support functionality and SOAP Communication Infrastructure. (The application to be developed is called a SOAP application.) To develop and execute a SOAP application, see the Application Server SOAP Application Development Guide.