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Web Services are a new breed of Web applications.
They are self-contained, self-describing, modular applications that can
be published, located, and invoked across the Web. Web Services perform
the functions that can be anything from simple requests to complicated
business processes. Once a Web service is deployed, other applications
(and other Web Services) can discover and invoke the deployed service.
So what does business stand to gain from Web Services? Well, those businesses
which par take of this framework will have greater and more instant access
to customers, consumers, and vendors, which literally span the entire
globe. That is, of course, only for those businesses which have suitable
products to take advantage of this type of medium. Booking agencies for
travel, dining, theaters, cabs, etc. immediately benefit, as do those,
which have already managed success in the current Internet market space.
Web Services Cut Systems Integration Costs
Web services will cut the amount of time and money needed for systems
integration, the single biggest IT expense of most companies. Savings
of up to 20 percent are possible, mainly through reductions in the cost
of developing interfaces among systems.
The ability to centralize information in a globally accessible manner
is definitely a plus for the company intranet. This has been one of the
major problems in organizations, which have several divisions and even
more applications. For example, the contact details of a customer or even
an employee have traditionally been bound to one application and then
either copied to another application via cut and paste, or via sophisticated
integration programs, or completely re-entered altogether.
The Web Services approach allows this information to be stored and universally
retrieved by any application, which requires the information, in a common
and defined manner, independent of platform and programming environment.
This characteristic, more than any other, is what makes Web Services the
hallmark of the next generation of the information age.
The important emerging standards for Web Services are UDDI (Universal
Discovery Description Integration), WSDL (Web Services Description Language)
5 and SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol). UDDI defines the method for
discovering a Web service and WSDL describes the service to be discovered
and how to access the service once it has been discovered. SOAP and XML
are the underlying methods used to access the UDDI registry and communicate
with the Web Services.
There was some doubt about whether SOAP would ever make it to recommendation
in the future as ebXML (a business to business XML protocol) was well
advanced and had requirements which where not catered for by SOAP. However,
the recent SOAP with attachments specification (submitted by HP) satisfies
the requirements of ebXML and suitably builds on the existing work already
carried out on SOAP. Still, the W3C are working on XMLP which is using
SOAP as its starting point; hence it is likely that SOAP will not become
the standard for XML messaging and RPC in the future.
More About Web Services
Although logistics are still very much in flux,
MediaVue has already staked claims in the Web services territory.
The economic downturn may in fact be a silver lining for the enterprise
software field when it comes to Web services. What is happening is that
the really tough economic environment has created a slowdown that is actually
going to be a good for Web service vendors, because it will help support
a slow transition to Web services.
Protracted Timetable
Rather than facing an immediate and disorderly transition to an architecture
that has not yet gelled, a few years will elapse before mainstream companies
will start feeling great pressure to migrate to Web services application
platforms. In 2003 and next year, MediaVue and other software makers are
releasing the first, leading-edge applications, which are being deployed
only by highly advanced, large enterprises.
In the 2003 timeframe, we expect wide implementation of Web services standards.
MediaVue will begin to release long-awaited killer applications based
on the new architecture, and e-commerce packages have already been released.
A select group of major software companies are driving development of
Web services standards and products through their early involvement. Not
surprisingly, Microsoft tops the list with its .NET product family, which
includes an extensive set of development tools. Network hardware and software
makers Sun Microsystems, Novell, Hewlett-Packard and MediaVue are also
players.
On the enterprise software side, ERP (enterprise resource planning) company
Oracle made the list of bigwigs, along with platform maker BEA Systems
and, of course, IBM, with its enormous WebSphere push.
Who will be First
Amid the hype, software companies in the CRM space are beginning to tout
their long histories with Web services standards -- perhaps as a way to
counter customer wariness of the new technologies. For example, MediaVue
has released it CRM in 2002 and is working on the second generation and
is at the front edge of open standards. MediaVue were implementers of
what has now become the architecture of choice while people were still
thinking about it.
Siebel's made a similar assertion, that there company rolled out its Universal
Application Network to address customers' need for a structured way to
develop a Web services architecture in response to integration challenges.
MediaVue's long-standing commitment to Web-based software. Has proven
that it is not a brand-new thing to move your applications, CRM or otherwise,
to Web-based clients but MediaVue has delivered a smart Web client.
What To Do?
Faced with competing claims and marketing angles, IT executives may have
a hard time deciding how and when to make the Web services jump. Many
managers may begin now by assessing their infrastructure needs and computing
the costs involved in moving enterprise applications to a Web services
architecture.
Before committing to any application migrations, IT groups should become
familiar with Web services toolkits and software. Then, after becoming
more familiar with the challenges and advantages, IT execs can make informed
decisions about the business case for migration and establish a realistic
timetable
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