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WSIF Overview


The Web Services Invocation Framework (WSIF) provides a Java API for invoking Web services, independent of the format of the service or the transport protocol through which it is invoked. WSIF provides the following features:

WSIF provides runtime support for Web services, and for WSDL extensions and bindings, that were not known at build time. This capability is known as dynamic invocation. Using WSIF, a client application can choose dynamically the optimal binding to use for invoking Web service operations. For example, a Web service might offer a SOAP binding, and also a local Java binding so that we can treat the local service implementation (a Java class) as a Web service. If a client application is deployed in the same environment as the service, then this client can use the local Java binding for the service. This provides more efficient communication between the client and the service by making direct Java calls rather than indirect calls using the SOAP binding.

WSIF provides this runtime support through the use of providers that link the WSIF service to the underlying implementation of the service. The providers support Web services, WSDL extensions and bindings that were not known at build time by using the WSDL description to access the target service.

WSIF is designed to work both in an unmanaged environment (running WSIF as a client) and inside a managed container. Use the JNDI to find the WSIF service, or we can use the location described in the WSDL.

For more conceptual information about WSIF and WSDL, see the following topics:

WSIF supports Internet Protocol V6, and Java API for XML-based Remote Procedure Calls (JAX-RPC) V1.1 for SOAP.



Subtopics


WSIF architecture
WSIF and WSDL
WSIF usage scenarios

 

Related concepts


Goals of WSIF

 

Related tasks


Use WSIF to invoke Web services
Manage WSIF
Invoking a WSDL-based Web service through the WSIF API
Linking a WSIF service to the underlying implementation of the service
Running WSIF as a client
Interacting with the Java EE container in WAS
Use WSIF to bind a JNDI reference to a Web service
Learn about the Web Services Invocation Framework (WSIF)