Heshan Suriyaarachchi covers some of the key concepts of the Apache Axis2 Web Service engine and how it can be extended to support JVM based scripting languages such as Jython, Jruby, etc allowing them to be used to both expose web services and write web service clients.
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InfoQ's Stefan Tilkov questioned lead developers of Apache Axis2, Apache CXF, Spring Web Services, JBossWS and and Sun’s Metro about their design goals, their approach towards Java and Web services standards, data binding, accessing XML, interoperability, REST support, and framework maturity. The results revealed many similarities and some noteworthy differences.
InfoQ had a chance to talk to WS-* expert and WSO2 CEO Sanjiva Weerawarana, one of the fathers and a firm advocate of the WS-* architectural vision, we questioned him on the WS-* platform and his views on Microsoft's role in standardization. Sanjiva also took the opportunity to address "WS-* and REST myths".
When it comes to web services interoperability between .NET and Java, the choice used to be limited to SOAP over HTTP. Two new options recently became available in this area: WebSphere MQ (WMQ) and ActiveMQ transports can now be used for building interoperable web services between Java and .NET.
A new article by Eran Chinthaka, Develop asynchronous Web services with Axis2, provides several examples of using the asynchronous APIs of Axis2 in client and server side applications.
Apache Geronimo, an open-source Java Enterprise Edition (Java EE) application server, recently released version 2.0.1. InfoQ took the opportunity to learn more about Apache Geronimo and where it fits into the application server space.
The topic of REST as an alternative for integration has been debated on InfoQ many times before. Recent news suggest REST is now gaining mind share among analysts and vendors, with some seeing REST as "the next big thing".
enunciate 1.0, a J2EE web service deployment framework that provides a complete development-to-deployment system for creating SOAP, REST, and JSON endpoints, was released last week. enunciate is not a web service stack like Axis2 or XFire. Rather, it uses XFire and Spring to provide a code-first development model (not in itself novel) that enforces compatibility contracts at compile time.
Deepal Javasinghe, one of the developers of Apache Axis2 and Synapse, describes 6 major usability improvements introduced in Axis2: J2EE style deployment mechanism, Hot deployment and hot update, a repository (where you drop services and modules, Change in the deploying of handlers (modules), new deployment descriptors, and multiple deployment options.
