RE: potential users of web services

I've been following this thread with interest. I was doing a
presentation on Web Services for some people I work for and one of the
things I had to do was define what a Web Service is. I took the easy
way out and said that some people think it has to be fully buzzword
compliant and others think that any machine-to-machine interaction
over the internet is a Web Service. It's clearly a term that has
fallen into the hands and imaginations of the marketing departments.

On Friday 2002-04-05 at 15:33:24(+1000) Hao He wrote:
 >  
 > >"Web Services, the session told us, are not necessarily in XML and do not
 > have to use SOAP, they just >describe opening up your internal processes."
 >  
 > I would agree with this statement in principal but not in practise. As you
 > pointed out, it is essentially important for web services to be loosely
 > coupled.  For that reason, it is really difficult not to use XML for
 > messaging if soneone does not want to reinvent the wheel.

Within the OGC, we developed a service known as "WMS" (Web Map
Service [1][2]). It fully specs out the format of an HTTP GET request and you
get back a rendered map as a JPEG, PNG, etc. XML is used so the client
can ask the server what kinds of maps it can produce. But the requests
are done with GET. (HTTP POST of XML encodings of the request have
been proposed). The interface follows REST [3] principles (although we did
not know that at the time).

I would say that a service followig REST principles even if it does
not use XML in the request or the response still counts as a web
service.

	Allan

[1] http://www.opengis.org/techno/specs/01-068r3.pdf
[2] http://www.intl-interfaces.net/cookbook/WMS/
[3] http://internet.conveyor.com/RESTwiki/moin.cgi


 > 
 > As to SOAP, it has a strong "RPC" style although the later version is moving
 > away from it, which is a good thing.  So SOAP is not really required. BTW, I
 > just received Anne's email and I agree with her again!
 > 
 > Hao
 > 
 > 
 > -------------------------------------------------
 > 
 > 
 > Seems to me that SOAP and XML are pretty required to be called a Web
 > service. Otherwise, it's a distributed app, but not the new loosly coupled
 > thing we are all working on.
 >  
 > Thanks,
 > Keith
 >  
 > [1] http://www.webservicesarchitect.com/content/articles/wiggers03.asp 
 > 
 > 	-----Original Message----- 
 > 	From: Anne Thomas Manes [mailto:anne@manes.net] 
 > 	Sent: Thursday, April 04, 2002 5:48 PM 
 > 	To: Hao He; thomi@di.uoa.gr; www-ws@w3.org 
 > 	Subject: RE: potential users of web services 
 > 
 > 	+1 
 > 
 > 	I was struggling with that word. I was originally going to call it
 > simply 
 > 	software -- trying not to  imply any level of granularity, but then
 > I 
 > 	thought -- well, it might actually be implemented using firmware or 
 > 	hardware. So I went with the word component. Perhaps it might be
 > best to 
 > 	call it a unit of work (although I don't want to imply that it
 > supports 
 > 	transaction semantics). 
 > 
 > 	Anne 
 > 
 > 	> -----Original Message----- 
 > 	> From: www-ws-request@w3.org [mailto:www-ws-request@w3.org]On
 > Behalf Of 
 > 	> Hao He 
 > 	> Sent: Thursday, April 04, 2002 7:35 PM 
 > 	> To: 'Anne Thomas Manes'; thomi@di.uoa.gr; www-ws@w3.org 
 > 	> Subject: RE: potential users of web services 
 > 	> 
 > 	> 
 > 	> I agree most with Anne except one tiny bit: 
 > 	> 
 > 	> I would say that a web service is a service provided by one or
 > more 
 > 	> components that exposes 
 > 	> a programmatic interface.  A compoent itself is not the service. 
 > 	> Service is 
 > 	> the functionality that defined in the interface. 
 > 	> 
 > 	> 
 > 	> Hao 
 > 	> 
 > 	> -----Original Message----- 
 > 	> From: Anne Thomas Manes [mailto:anne@manes.net] 
 > 	> Sent: Friday, April 05, 2002 5:05 AM 
 > 	> To: thomi@di.uoa.gr; www-ws@w3.org 
 > 	> Subject: RE: potential users of web services 
 > 	> 
 > 	> 
 > 	> Thomi, 
 > 	> 
 > 	> Ask five people the definition of "web service" and you'll get 
 > 	> six answers. 
 > 	> 
 > 	> I generally describe a web service as a service that communicates
 > over the 
 > 	> web. A service is a component that exposes a programmatic
 > interface. The 
 > 	> service interface must be described; and the service 
 > 	> implementation must be 
 > 	> discoverable. 
 > 	> 
 > 	> When you relate this abstract definition to current technologies,
 > you can 
 > 	> implement a web service by creating a service that exposes a SOAP 
 > 	> interface, 
 > 	> which is described by WSDL, and which is registered in UDDI. But 
 > 	> I wouldn't 
 > 	> want to use current technologies to *define* the basic concept. I 
 > 	> also don't 
 > 	> think that it's essential to use any of these technologies to
 > create a web 
 > 	> service. I can certainly create a web service using XML-RPC or 
 > 	> RosettaNet or 
 > 	> a host of other technologies. 
 > 	> 
 > 	> That said, I would concur that web services are intended to be
 > consumed by 
 > 	> applications rather than humans. But keep in mind that a user
 > interface is 
 > 	> an application. If I wanted to arrange food for 500 people for 
 > 	> two weeks in 
 > 	> Dubai, I would use a catering application, which in turn uses web
 > services 
 > 	> to find caterers that can provide services in Dubai. The UI isn't
 > the web 
 > 	> service. The UI uses web services to accomplish its work. Hence 
 > 	> an ASP page 
 > 	> or HTML form aren't web services, they are an interface to web
 > services. 
 > 	> 
 > 	> Best regards, 
 > 	> 
 > 	> Anne Thomas Manes 
 > 	> CTO, Systinet 
 > 	> 
 > 	> > -----Original Message----- 
 > 	> > From: www-ws-request@w3.org [mailto:www-ws-request@w3.org]On 
 > 	> > Behalf Of Thomi Pilioura 
 > 	> > Sent: Thursday, April 04, 2002 9:09 AM 
 > 	> > To: www-ws@w3.org 
 > 	> > Subject: potential users of web services 
 > 	> > 
 > 	> > 
 > 	> > Hi all, 
 > 	> > 
 > 	> > I'm little confused about the notion of the term "web services".
 > 
 > 	> > When I'm reading papers related to UDDI,WSDL,SOAP they present 
 > 	> > web services 
 > 	> > as a new age of distributed computing and as such they are only 
 > 	> useful to 
 > 	> > developers (who are trying to build web applicattions) and not
 > to the 
 > 	> > end-users. But when I'm reading papers related to DAML-S the
 > idea I'm 
 > 	> > getting for web services is different. They are also useful to 
 > 	> > end users as 
 > 	> > it shown by DAML-S motivating scenarios: 
 > 	> > 
 > 	> > Web service discovery 
 > 	> > Find me a shipping service that transports goods to Dubai. 
 > 	> > 
 > 	> > Web service invocation 
 > 	> > Buy me 500 lbs. powdered milk from www.acmemoo.com 
 > 	> > 
 > 	> > Web service selection, composition and interoperation 
 > 	> > Arrange food for 500 people for 2 weeks in Dubai. 
 > 	> > 
 > 	> > Web service execution monitoring 
 > 	> > Has the powdered milk been ordered and paid for yet? 
 > 	> > 
 > 	> > There are also numerous papers that use the term service (and
 > not "web 
 > 	> > service") and are talking about UDDI, WSDL and DAML-S. What's
 > the 
 > 	> > difference 
 > 	> > between "web service" and "service" if both of them work over 
 > 	> > Internet? For 
 > 	> > example, a search engine (such as google) is a service, but when
 > it is 
 > 	> > described in WSDL, published in UDDI and can be invoked using 
 > 	> > SOAP becomes a 
 > 	> > web service? Ia a asp or an HTML form a service or a web
 > service? 
 > 	> > 
 > 	> > In summary which are the potential users of web services (web
 > service 
 > 	> > providers, developers, end-users)? 
 > 	> > 
 > 	> > could you please shed some light on this? 
 > 	> > regards 
 > 	> > Thomi Pilioura 
 > 	> > 
 > 	> > 
 > 	> > 
 > 	> > 
 > 	> 
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-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Allan Doyle                         http://www.intl-interfaces.com
adoyle@intl-interfaces.com

Received on Friday, 5 April 2002 09:18:37 UTC