RE: Article: Fat protocols slow Web services

-----Original Message-----
From: Champion, Mike [mailto:Mike.Champion@SoftwareAG-USA.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, January 09, 2002 8:52 AM
To: xml-dist-app@w3.org
Subject: RE: Article: Fat protocols slow Web services



snip ... Mike asked...

 ... Would anyone seriously disagree
that the current generation of SOAP-based technologies is a much easier
"sell" for application integration behind the firewall than it is for
wide
deployment over the internet? Or am I missing the point here entirely?
...

I disagree with worrying about "sell" ... ;O ... Web Services are a
nascent technology. 

The tradeoff - Web Services use XML and likely SOAP. Yes, these are
slower due in part to a)Parsing time, b)Tree traversal time for app
logic, and 3) Tagset overhead in message size.

Willingly trade the speed to enable interoperability with others widely
distributed over the world. 

Accepting the tradeoff enables organizations to turn outward and
communicate with the machines of other organizations. This is new
territory. 

The tradeoff is valuable as well among organizations within a company.
This does start to intersect with the current EAI space.

Second tradeoff - a public Web Service standard simplifies the problem
of Integration between islands of automation (applications) within
organizations. 

Accepting this tradeoff leads to lower integration costs as app
providers expose integration hooks implemented to standards. EAI is made
easier. 

At the UDDI Advisory Group meeting in Atlanta last June, the keynoter,
Darryl Plummer, pointed out that legacy app integration is first out the
chute as an initial market for Web Services. He also noted this is not
unique. He said in effect that early in their lifecycle, new
technologies usually get applied to extending the lives of legacy apps. 

Mike you are right to see the initial use as the first sell.  But the
arena for use is so much larger. 

As for the article, I don't think the author engages Web Services at
this level of acknowledging the benefits received by accepting the
tradeoffs. He only laments the implications for those that administer
the network.

Received on Wednesday, 9 January 2002 16:29:47 UTC