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Discovery of complex datatypes. (Web Services).

Article Excerpt
Web services promises to change the landscape of distributed computing forever. Soon computer systems will freely exchange data independent of their language, architecture, or platform. Applications will be available on a per-use basis, and the current business model will be drastically modified as service-based computing expands the Internet into the next phase. In the technology adoption curve, we have just begun the "proof of concept" phase--a phase that will see the adoption rate of Web services increase steadily over the next 12 months. Shortly thereafter, the ability to link to systems written in different languages will be as common as HTTP itself.

The ability to connect disparate systems through a common data interchange is not the only quality that makes Web services so appealing. In fact, Web services discovery is really what sets the technology apart from existing systems. Although it is not completely developed, UDDI promises to deliver a common interface for discovery of available services. In order for dynamic discovery to be fully appreciated, Web services needs to achieve full maturation, which requires completely dynamic invocation. Having the ability to discover a service in an automated fashion offers little functionality if applications aren't flexible enough to routinely integrate the service into existing architectures.

When Web services first arrived on the scene, this type of flexibility seemed like a simple task. At the time we were dealing with "simple" services--services that...

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