Web services is the newest distributed programming architecture that promises to solve Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) hurdles that other programming models could not. It involves one program communicating with another using a text-based, platform, and language independent message format called XML (Extensible Markup Language). This, coupled with a platform and language independent messaging protocol called SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol), along with other standards such as WSDL (Web Services Description Language) for describing metadata about a particular Web service, makes application development and integration a matter of assembling previously built components from multiple Web services.
With iWay Business Services Provider (iBSP), generic Web services client applications can access enterprise information that would otherwise require custom programming. This allows Web services developers to create and deploy integration projects in a much quicker, cheaper, and easier way. Web services client applications written in a variety of application development tools, as well as third-party products based on Web services standards, can easily run a business service, which is a Web services that uses adapters, without any customization or code modification. It is simply a matter of pointing the application to the .wsdl file for that business service, and then running it. And, because the adapters are provided, clients do not have to concern themselves with application version upgrades, as the version compatibility is maintained.
iBSP is a Web services gateway, not a specific adapter. That means that any adapter, regardless of the technology it uses to perform a function, can be made into a standard invoked Web service. Consumers of the Web services do not need to concern themselves with system-specific configuration issues, such as communications information, backend security issues, or acceptable data types, since the Web services isolates the business logic from physical connection information.
iBSP runs on Windows and UNIX platforms, provided there is a Java Virtual Machine™ (JVM) 1.3 present. iBSP will not start without a JVM. The adapters that can be used by Web services client applications using iWay Business Services Provider are supported on many different operating systems and computing environments. Adapters for many different types of technologies are also available, such as:
| iWay Software |