Introduction 1.1 BACKGROUND Long before the Information Technology (IT) revolution, the industry depended on traditional ways of business conducting transactions. This included merchandising of products as well as services. While these tradi- tional ways were simple in nature, they were powerful enough to sustain business in a competitive environment. The life cycle of a product or a serv- ice merchandising involved the following simple stepss—— ‘roduct (or service) creation (A Advertsing in appropriate medium ‘Discovery by the interested customer Establish contact between interested vendor(s) and customer(s) oH Usage of product or serviceee 4 Web Services: An Introduction The above steps are illustrated in Figure 1.1 in a detailed manner.(The initial step is involved in the creation of the product or a service) This is shown in Figure T-1a.€n this traditional business-transaction scenario, itis essential that any product or service is appropriately advertised. While there are a variety Of media available for advertising, it is crucial that an appropriate medium is rac Pont Pe] Tao, Twant'o adverse in yotow pages, sirwet number for ‘urtoer Service Negotiation ‘Accessing Service Figure 1.1 Products and Services—A Traditional Way of Discovering and Accessing 7Introduction is) _chosen}One of the popular media for the business related product/service creators has been the Yellow Pages (Figure 1.1b). Yellow prc (service and the information was made avail- able usually in the printed form to the consumers. Yellow Pages were some- ‘Times referred to as the business driver, as it could play a crucial role in such business promotions among interested customers, —— ‘Taxonomy, as applied to the business-related field is a means for organiz~ ing available information in an orderly and reproducible manner. Taxonomy is the science of classification that helps in the organization of relationships among related pieces of information. (Clasication of information helps consumers find information quickly, narrowing down to the required infor= mation in the early stages of searching) Buyers/customers interested in the ‘Services can refer to that-part of the service and identify the potential service provider (Figures 1.1 c and 1 d).(The customer and the service provider ‘establish contact with each other and negotiate for the product/service.)This is illustrated in Figure 1.1 e. Upon successful negotiation, the customer starts using the product/service, as shown in Figure 1.1 fellow Pages thus helps in the initial stages of product/service a ar to avail the same product/service from the same vendor, referring again to Yellow Pages becomes superfluous. ‘The model articulated in the previous paragraph, sustained business for quite along ire Wie adversingn ‘media such as Yellow Pages provided a power- 2 ServIces iz the earlier section, both products and services were referred to with respect to merchandising) While the products are tangible in nature, services are mostly i | or hardware, maintenance and lel veryiofeeruipmentona peckngeetucation ars aga Services: An Introduction 6 —— ~~ A ervice: tendered and availed in almost a few examplesiof the services)Gervices are toe » business and industries) The growth and proliferation of IT across all the business and industrie es planar ffl ser pe industries and business appears to have fu h 1 the delivery of services profoundly. Delivering services has been an attract business proposition for many industries lately. Services can be delivered or availed directly or indirectly. A direct delivery of a service means that the service has tangible implications. For example, a courier service is tangible, whereas a stock-quote is not. Also, a service may require a combination of other such services, having tangible and intangible implications. For example, a courier service may use courier-tracking service, whereas a software package is used to track the location and other: such details, Software-driven services delivery, therefore, has powerful connotations. Software has played a unique and important role in enabling the delivery of services in various industries. Retail, Supply-Chain and Logistics, Banking and Financial services, Education and Training, Manufacturing, Pharmaceuticals, Health Care etc. are examples of some of the industry ver- ticals that have continuously leveraged software as a means to deliver or avail services. When software is used as a means to deliver services, there are additional implications. Software-based service delivery on the Mainframe system could be isolated within a stand-alone system environment, whereas the soft- ware based service delivery on a Client/Server system could occur anywhere on the Local Area Network (LAN)/Wide Area Network (WAN) of the sys- tem. On the contrary, delivering a software service on the Internet environ- ment could be beyond the geographical limitations, The software on differ- ent systems can therefore deliver services to different extents. However, in any of the networked architecture in the business scenario—Client/Server, Th multi-tier or distributed system architecture—the service will be availed by Hy, the clients in the manner described in the following paragraphs: pro coul + Aservice is a server process (an application program executing on a com- web y€* puter) that caters to the client request by performing an appropriate task instil on the server s seniGar appl ication such as Courier Tracking System byth that could either hold or retrieve the most up-to-date information al its gnInsreduction ae Package)or an (application that could provicle the fied, che pe nberature Service of any place that could be uniquely identi Poe cic: are some examples of such services This server process could moh host operating system and/or file server and/or other related plications, The server process, will most usually be up and running, waiting for request. Ge client applications are designed to accept user inputs and send them to the server application using an appropriate communication protocol {These client applications are most usually associated wilh a Rtaphical user interface (GUI))The GUIs are appropriately, and attrac- tively, designed to collect the user info ae jon. + Analogous two Persons talking to each other using a common lan- guage, the client and server applications are meant to communicate with each other using a mutually understandable communication pro" tocol. When the server application receives the request from the client application, it accepts the request, analyses it and generates a suitable response. This response is communicated back to the client. The client application then appropriately displays the response using the GUI features of the client applica oar r to thenternet era, systems and software architectures were designed to offer services to the clients over the network, These services were available on the LAN/WAN of the enterprise) However, two or more such services developed and deployed over different hardware and operating system could not exchange the services owing to the differences in the programming environment and dependence on communication protocol. Due to such issues, delivering or availing services over the network became vendor dependent. The emergence of Internet and World Wide Web (WWW), and availability of Hyper Text Transport Protocol (HTTP) as a lightweight communication protocol on the Internet changed the services scenario altogether. Services could be availed using browser based clients on the Internet. Although the web was exclusively used by research academies, schools and educational institutions in the initial stages, acceptance of Internet and World Wide Web by the business community provided a tremendous boost to the Internet and its growth. The use of web for business was an attractive proposition, as itWeb Services An Introduction ‘ oness of the web lay in its ability to st and ecient. The uniqueness ofthe WAN Sie ve ee information share, and search and exchange faquiest/response oriented protocol) The mecha. at works is a5 follows: A web server would be run. or more applicati TTTP is referred to as nism in which this protoc server system, hosting on | application receives the juests from: request from a client rercepted on the d equest, processes: | Cihis result is commvunicated back “to the | response | \ fhe service offered by the applications oN Seat a the Mfient as a Hyper Text Markup Language ) Jsuall tent isa mamically generated content, indicating the availability of most up-to-date information for the business concerned. The dynamic generation of the HTML content is a key requirement to meet the constantly changing needs of the ever-evolving business. Offering services through web brings the businesses several significant advantages. Availability and accessibility of services on the Internet backbone is the most prominent among such advantages. Among the other important | advantages, scale and distribution of the customers present unique opportu- | nities for the businesses to expand and grow at a faster pace. At the same time, scale and distribution of customers could be a challenging issue for the services provider. Since the advantages outweigh the challenges, business and industries appear to be increasingly dependent on the web for growth and globalization. The web and Internet offer a unique medium for business- es to reach beyond geographical boundaries. The immediate consequence was the growth and proliferation in the business-to-consumer (B2C) market. However, Internet and web effect did not spawn the same kind of prolifera- tion and growth in the business-to-business (B2B) market, as the medium of communication remained a stumbling block in the realization of business automation. While there could be many reasons for the subdued growth in Me | | | 1.3 Wee SERVICESIntroduction eee 9 siness automa : business automation, the predominant fundamental problems may be attrib- ited to factors ute 'ors such as disparate systems, incompatible applications and pro- prietary communication protocols. |ncase two or more such partner organizations need to agree on B2B trans- actions, they are confronted with a scenario that is complicated and dogged with serious integration and interoperability issues. Ability of applications deployed on disparate hardware and running on incompatible operating environments to communicate with each other is essential for interoperabili- ty. This promotes business automation among partners and collaborators. Interoperability is the key to business automation. It may be defined as the ability of an application to interface and communicate with other applications on disparate systems without much of integration and development effort. The technology of web services promises the interoperability among business applications deployed on disparate systems of business partners, collabora- tors and make these available beyond geographical boundaries. e. As the name of the language itself suggests, it is a markup language, which is extensible in nature. XML forms the basis of web services, as it enables interoperability, which crucial requirement. Web Services is characterized by its ability to stimulate the interoperability among communicating applications by using the XML-based data represen- tation. These applications are loosely coupled and could be synchronous or asynchronous in nature. While the earlier paragraph provided a very basic definition of web servic- es, many technologists and vendors prefer to define web services with respect to the advanced vocabularies of XML. These vocabularies are specifications on top of the basic XML and three of them are considered important with KRWeb Services: An Introducy 10) b services: Simple Object Access Protocgy jon Language (WSDL) and Universa] tion-(UDD). IBM, Microsoft, Sun ervices with respect to these throg eb services could be consiq. eect to technology as well as the business n following technologies—SOAP, Wspy_ ilstributed computing. Use of any of the basic tech. UbDI—constitutes a Web service. Use of all of definition of wel rvices Descript covery and Integra defined web s Gartner's definition of w respect to the | (SOAP), Web S | Description, Di Microsystems, ete. hav | vocabularies. However, | ered as very appropriate Accordingly, ior more of the | perspective. nents that employ one and UDDI-to perform nologies—SOAP, WSDL or them is not required. | Definition of web services by most of the industry leaders, such as IBM, Microsoft, Sun Microsystems etc., do incorporate these be ree, sis dertvatives trie dfinton of web services. Ii important 10 know that these three a ponent help businesses to communicate with each other and help the business automation happen. Provider, Service Requester and Service Brokes)An effort is made to provide a complete picture of how these categories of business interact with arch other and help in effectuating web services, in Figure 1.2. This figure indicates the interaction between Service Providers (or provider), Service Requester (or requester) and Service Broker (or broker). A provider could be apable of providing service, Likewise, a that is in need of the service, Geb services essentially involve three categories of businesses. They are Service i ani requester could be a company or a busi whereas the Provider and Service Requester to disco The interaction among the provider, requester and broker is shown in Figure 1.2 with the help of uni-directional or bi-directional arrows. These arrows indicate the interactions between the three participants and the inter- actions are termed as publish, find and bind. The interaction between the provider and the broker is the publication of the service information. This is uni-directional interaction. Similarly, the interaction between the requester and the broker is finding the service information. The interac- tion between the provider and the requester is essentially a bi-directional aIntroduction ———______ u Figure 1.2 Interaction Among Service Provider, Service Requester and Service Broker interaction, indicating the request-response between them. It is important to note here that the interactions among the participants take place in an inter- operable manner.Web Services An Intron 12 2 od above is further elucidated with the help of Figure 13, The interactions io" rence of events that take place between provi der, which displays a sequen © ample illustrates the concept of web services requester and the broker ants: provider, requester and the broker are software | \ where all the three participa a ice dounntsiguea es | 5 Jem applications, (ones See such as publish, find or bind. tor of 5 be considered as a facilital Internet tl 4 Services Searching Services Invocation Figure 1.3 Web Services: Interaction Among Service Provider, Service Requester and Service Broker eeIntroduction ‘The provider is involved in the business of providing business services. The provider creates applications that are capable of providing services that are in demand. This is shown in Figure 1.3a. As this application needs to cater to the requirement for a large audience it is deployed on a suitable server, as shown in Figure 1.3b. i The service provider would then be publishing this service in a suitable media. This media could be an electronic form of Yellow Pages where the serv- ices information could be published based on a taxonomy to which the serv- ice could possibly belong. This electronic form is termed as business registry or registry. This registry acts as digital Yellow Pages, and provides service information for the requesters. The process of publication of services related information is shown in Figure 1.3c, The requester, at the other end, uses the registry to search for the required service. Searching on this registry yields information that is being sought by the requester as shown in Figure 1.34. There could be zero or more matches for the criteria on which the searching, is done. Once satisfied about the service, the requester will then communicate and negotiate with the provider. This negotiation could involve, among the other things, price, quality, etc. This is exemplified in Figure 1.3e. Upon suc- cessful negotiation, the requester will start using the services, as shown in Figure 1.3f. The role of the broker needs some explanation here. For the type of exam- ple discussed here, the role of the broker is to bring both the provider and the requester to the same platform so that they can understand each other, dis- cuss and negotiate. The requirement of the broker (or his services) ends once the provider and the requester start transacting between themselves. The provider and the requester might visit the broker infrequently. The need for the broker arises only when there is a change in the services-related informa- tion. However, itis important to note here that the broker himself is provid- ing at least two services—publisher service and search service. Furthermore, it should be observed here that all the three participant appli- cations—provider, requester and the broker—are completely transparent to each other. This is the brightest and the best part of the web services. In sim- ple terms, this means that the requester (or the application that is seeking the services) need not have any knowledge of provider (or the application that is4 suet age in which vice), the PIB apr Similany, a rapa Pe sani f invoking the servic, et. Similarly a requee( ae been developed wal patio ee longus of nese Whatisimporanis hat al te pa eto communicate in an interoperable manne, P# providing the “14 Wea Sac ARUCATION OPFORTUNTES ices heralded another significant milestone in the history of Ir Web Services tered mostly to the business-to-consumer (B2C) Category of Earlier, Internet se ‘As against this, web services enable B2B interactions pa the re ead a /transaction is being carried out on the web, HTp Snel Tse Fool SIP and such anspor pra ay for communication. ‘The possibility of business automation is the most attractive aspect of web services. This feature undeniably helps businesses in expanding opportuni. tis ina variety of ways. Italso helps in creating newer opportunities to trans. act business between cooperating and interacting business communities, Consider the following possibilty of a B2B scenario when a consumer pur. chases atelvision from a retail store. As soon as the television is purchased, a chain of events needs o be triggered without any manual intervention: + Charging ofthe consumer's credit/debit card. Time + Notification tothe financial accounting application of the retail store. fie * Notification to the inventory management application of the retail store. a Figure 1 * Notification to the replishment application of the distributor, in case the inventory falls below certain level, * Database updating of the retail store ofthe new Purchase. aad * Notification to the sales application of the distributor. 3 a « Updating the database about the ‘custome details . frmeeaes er and purchase order + Notifi —_Insroduction ' = ! aa 1 [canon 1 | ines ' ' Cwetacad | [Faecal | [Purtare | [ioveocry |! tyrten || Accouing | | Syne | | Mangemert | | Sues System Distabotor Time Line Lnhing he tusase paces set Legend: em no ertaion bomndater Mam Art by ergurtaion Figure 1.4 A Possible B2B Scenario Among the Trading Partners of a Television Manufacturer «Notification to the manufacturer's sales application program. + Updating manufacturers database about the new sale and consumer information. ‘* Notification to the manufacturer's guarantee and warranty applications.Aantn ——— {watson An Sty Chin Vat Sta ‘Weonmuriatons Uj Whig, Aadk on adoption fe “Hee ‘onto etalationtop = elon wing 13 Soweey Aste bain go snebarisn, sgowamorgall bed: ‘matin ara the Tretalg ML shares ot Wb isp behets read bins pr va RE Shs ae sivletomestn, 1 Neen Gus yada A Define thet ek Sn sae atmstranmeey stent, sn SSessen, ar =o Sites Seems = —_Web Services: An Introduction i a ee « Updating the databases of the suppliers and trading partners of the manufacturer. It is important to note here that a chain of events listed above could be taking place on different systems, belonging, to different businesses entities, situated in geographically different locations as shown in Figure 1.4. The business relations among these entities could range from in-house Research & Development to supplier to trading partner or distributor etc. This chain of events may be implemented using the following: * Manual process « Proprietary technology and communication mechanism, or * Web Services While human delivery is slow, error prone and a non-scaleable option, using a proprietary technology could bog down the business due to vendor locking, | and the solution could be expensive. Many a times such solutions are non- extendable. However, they could provide a good performance option. Web Services, on the other hand, not only enable this scenario to transpire smoothly, but they also provide the business with a simple and extensible option, ‘The participating organizations in this scenario may or may not be using the broker services for publishing and discovering the services. However, the com- municating applications among these B2B collaborators would be transacting in an interoperable manner. The events taking place could be sequential or par- allel and could happen in a synchronous and /or asynchronous mode. Itis worthwhile to observe here that different applications belonging to dif- ferent businesses, related in some way, could communicate with each other, | depending on a set of common interests. Recent surveys have projected an adoption of web services among several industries and business houses. It is well evident from these surveys that web | services are beyond hype and they can, indeed, provide a means to achieve Mma As iInoroduction v business automation. Among several such vertical markets are Retail, Supply Chain Management & Logistics (SCM), Financial and Banking. services, Telecommunications, Utilities, Pharmaceutical, and Health Care etc. The out- look on adoption of web services reveals a slow and matured way of adop- tion from evaluation to prototyping all the way to mission-critical application deployment. 1.5 SUMMARY As the businesses grow and evolve, the need for the services continues to grow among all the related partners and collaborators. The need for business automation among these partners and collaborators is therefore on the raise. ‘The technology of XML based web services is shaping up to meet this require- ment. Web services appear to deliver the promise of interoperability among related business partners to bring about business automation. 1.6 REVIEW QUESTIONS . Define the term ‘Service’. 1 2. What are the essential differences between ‘Product’ and ‘Service’? 3. What are the differences between ‘web service’ and ‘Web Services’? 4. Explain ‘Web Services Stack’ 5. . Which are the essential XML vocabularies that constitute ‘Web Services’?