Introduction: Web services

Explore the key concepts pertaining to web services applications. Web services implement a service-oriented architecture (SOA), which supports the connecting or sharing of resources and data. Services support dynamic, automated discovery and reuse.

The WebSphere Application Server supports a set of web services standards that support the creation and administration of interoperable, securable, transactionable, and reliable web services applications. Using the strategic Java™ API for XML-Based Web Services (JAX-WS) programming model, web service clients can now additionally invoke web services asynchronously, which means the client can continue processing without waiting on the response. Your JAX-WS web services can also take advantage of the Web Services Reliable Messaging protocol quality of service where we can be confident that the communication is reliable and reaches its destination while interoperating with other vendors.

The WebSphere Application Server supports both the JAX-WS programming model and the JAX-RPC programming model. JAX-WS extends JAX-RPC.

JAX-WS simplifies development through a standard, annotation-based model to develop web services and clients. A common set of binding rules for XML and Java objects make it easy to incorporate XML data and processing functions in Java. A further set of enhancements help you optimally send binary attachments, such as images or files with the web services request.

Simplified management of these web services profiles makes it easy to configure and reuse configurations, so we can seamlessly incorporate new web services profiles.

Related concepts

Web Services Security enhancements

Related tasks

Task overview: Implement web services applications

Web services specifications and APIs