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Deploying Web services on WebSphere: a real-life example, using the tools and services provided.

Article Excerpt
IBM is one of the most dominant players in the push for Web services. It's therefore not surprising that much of the Web services work done by the company has been incorporated into their flagship product -- the WebSphere Application Server.

As of version 4, support for Web services is incorporated into every level of WebSphere. This means that a few of the Web services libraries come with the WebSphere Application Server. Specifically, support for SOAP and UDDI4J are both an integral part of the WebSphere Application Server and used for implementing Web services, servicing calls made using SOAP, making calls to other Web services, and allowing applications deployed over WebSphere to interact with UDDI registries -- both for discovering and publishing services. The support provided for Web services within WebSphere focuses on the deployment aspects only. The focus on tools and developer productivity is part of WebSphere Studio and includes a WSDL generator. These tools were originally packaged as the Web Services Toolkit, (still) available through AlphaWorks. These tools can work with WebSphere 4 (actually, they also work with WebSphere 3.5) as well as with a number of UDDI repositories. The same tools have been improved and repackaged and are available as part of webSphere Studio.

This article focuses on the deployment aspects and describes a full process in which I take a JAR file implementing an important business function and expose it as a Web service deployed on a WebSphere Application Server. For an overview of Web services in general and SOAP, WSDL, and UDDI specifically, please see my article in the November issue of XML-Journal (Vol. 2, issue 11).

The Scheduling Service

The example I'll use as the Web service involves an important business function from the realm of workforce management (a specialty within CRM). I'm giving a brief description of the service because I feel it's important to show a real use of Web services in a real business context. I've been very disappointed and frustrated by the fact that almost every example I see of Web services is some permutation of the stock quote function. One could get the impression reading...

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