Web Services & Integration

Web Browsers can interact with the application services to perform tasks like interacting with the database or other sources to get orders, send greeting or news. The system offers cross-platform interoperability where apps written in Java or Microsoft can be integrated using the web service layer.

This helps to get dynamic integration of apps independent of the technology where methods like Just in Time integration can get a service provider that publishes the description of service through the service registry.

Just-in-Time can happen at runtime and the client may not know what procedure is used to run. Such systems provide the next stage evolution for e-commerce – a business where everything is integrated as a service dynamically on-demand – discovered run time through messaging on the internet. 

It can be hosted on IIS but is no lightweight as it uses SOAP. It is different from the core APIs that are hosted with app or IIS, are lightweight, and can support URLs, caching, content formats, response headers/requests, etc.

We provide consultancy regarding end-to-end solutions to all your website and mobile device integration needs. Our consultancy ensures that you are able to meet complex and challenging technical and industrial hassles, ranging from concept and design to testing and implementation.

We are committed to providing collaborative problem solving sophisticated designs and quality products to ensure to take your business to the next level and build long-lasting relationships with your clients beyond business.

We strive to support your web application integration needs to enable you to achieve the highest goals where the doors are wide open for a wide range of valuable and creative solutions needed for your business growth. 

What are Web Services?

Web services provide software, cloud or apps which can provide standardized web protocols like the HTTPS and HTTP to exchange data and messages, mostly, through XML on the internet. The technology is XML centric and it uses the internet for A2A – application-to-application communication and interfacing.

The web applications provide ways to create dynamic websites that require communication technology to interact with the database to provide back-end services used to present data to the user.

The processes involve interaction with the database to retrieve or send messages, programs, documents or objects. It is unlike the static websites that do not require interaction with the database and all the information is held with the front-end program code. 

What are the different types of Web Services?

XML-RPC is one of the basic protocols used to exchange data between multiple devices and multiple networks.  It works on HTTP and can transfer messages from client to server.

WSDL provides information about the services and its functionalities.  UDDI offers a distributed directory of web services. It is a kind of internet registry for companies of the world where the registry aims to streamline the transactions and e-commerce data.

SOAP and RESTful technologies are used to integrate mobile-based features without the need for intermediaries. SOAP works on vendor-specific technologies and enables distributed interoperability.  

Integration of Web Services

Integration helps in communication and exchange of information where a web service provider enables certain functionalities that can be used by different applications working on different codes. The application can send a request to use the services where the web app is hosted, and the server responds as per the request. 

The Use of Web Services for Application Integration 

• New developments in object-oriented methods have changed the A2A and B2B deployment and customization.

• Earlier the integration of codes written in C, C++ or COBOL was done through a programming interface (APIs) where concrete data structures were invoked through RPCs across the internet.

• Later RMI (Java remote method invocation), Common object request and DCOM were used at the distributed middleware. Now message-oriented MOM and XML are used with SOAP for such integrations. 

• Business requirements, application architecture, business processes, and enterprise data integration policy determines the use of functions where web services provide standard methods to publish and subscribe to apps over a network.

• Where client apps can locate the services published by servers using UDDI. WSDL provides information related to the interface of the service, and XML and SOAP are used for formatting data. 

Web Service Integration Example 

An example of such situations can be found in mergers where the enterprise integrates the IT systems with the business procedures. This can be found in the travel industry where computing is largely mainframe-based and exposed to multiple apps through the wrapping. 

It can be seen in IBM and Microsoft applications where IBM integrated web services support through the Web Sphere, Lotus, Tivoli, and DB2 products. 

It is useful in legacy applications where the security, middleware, and communication technologies are wrapped as the environmental prerequisites. 

Website and Mobile Device Integration 

Mobile devices run on stationary servers and wireless technologies. A mobile phone works on the WAP browser, which is a microbrowser that is considered internet capable. The WAP browser accepts a card deck that is like a tiny Web Page where instead of HTML, WML is used to design the layout. The users can navigate the WAP application from the menu.

The structure is based on the minimalist web page concept where frames and graphical navigation cannot be translated into the menu oriented structure. 

Mobile interaction is now limited to thumb-operated keypads and the new web services support the features which are required for such operations. The diverse options offer opportunities for corporate users where the applications could run on a mobile device and interact seamlessly on multiple configurations, Wi-fi and GPRS. 

The integration on mobile can increase the functionality of the device and provide benefits like - it enables the owner to have ultimate control over managing, administering and securing mobile hosted services.

The location-based apps help to track the individual's location and it is also useful for triggering/updating new information.

What are REST and SOAP Web Services? 

SOAP is a packaging format, mainly, built on XML, though, there are several packaging protocols used by developers. The advantage of SOAP is that it is easier to distribute but it is difficult to set up and harder to develop. 

Representational State Transfer or REST is the style based on specific constraints, uniform interface, and the architectural style, where unique URLs represent the individual objects. It is applied to improve performance, scalability, and modifiability. 

The RESTful web services provide a set of resources that helps in interaction with the clients where the resources can be identified as URIs – that provides global addressing space for service discovery and resource. The server uses HTTP as the supporting protocol.

Self-descriptive messages where resources are decoupled with the representation to help the user access the HTML, PDF and other file formats, and the metadata related to the resource are offered to control the caching, negotiate the representation format and performance access control. 

Uniform interface is another application that is manipulated using create, update, read and delete options i.e. PUT, GET, POST and DELETE.  

The advantages of REST are - it is lightweight, easier to build and human-readable, whereas, the drawbacks are that it lacks standards and point to point communication.

Web Service Architecture

• The architecture involves the service provider, the service requester, and the service broker, and these are used for operation publish, find and bind. 

• These are self-contained modular apps that can be published, located, invoked and described over WWW.

• A WDS document describes the non-operational service information like the service category, description and expiration date, and information like the service provider, the company name, address and contact information.

• A NASSL document contains information about the service, interface, implementation, and access protocol and contact endpoints.

• The architecture allows incremental security and quality facilitated by configuration needed as per the environmental prerequisites.

• The role of the architecture is to promote interoperability by lowering the requirement for shared understanding. It helps to provide JIT integrations, reduce complexity through the method of encapsulation and promote interoperability of the legacy software.

Web Service Integration In Android

The first step is to clear up the internal functions to provide flexible, scalable internal infrastructure to support the business. The mobile backend needs HTTPS for every endpoint and the developmental environment should use the same type of certificates.

Each project has a different requirement for performance and scalability, and one has to evaluate the requirement to determine where to host the server. 

The programmer has to stage the architecture and environment in the manner that the structure promotes interoperability and minimizes the requirement for shared understanding between the provider and the requester. 

In the last stage, collaborations are created dynamically at the run time, and as the requester identifies the capabilities of the provider, it finds the appropriate service. 

Spring RESTful Web Services Integration Example

The constraints of RESTful web services are – there should be a service provider and a service consumer. The interface or URL is uniform and service is stateless but cacheable and layered. 

Spring Boot provides support for creating RESTFul web services for enterprise applications. The Spring Initializr offers a way to pull the dependencies for the app or one can use the SpringApplication helper class.

Spring released version 4.0.0 and utilizes the Jackson JSON integration to send JSON response. STS tools are used to generate the pom.xml where one can add the dependencies. Then the coder has to configure the REST API and deploy it.