I'm at JavaOne this week learning all the new stuff about Java and Web Services. So far, there's little talk about Apache SOAP and Apache Axis, but that's to be expected at a Sun-centered conference I suppose.

The JAX-RPC birds of a feather session covered Sun JAX-RPC group's planned support for WS-Security. Client-side security certificates never took off and that leaves Web Services in a difficult situation because PKI/SSL configuration is a huge pain for system managers. The session presented a conceptual view of WS-Security in JAX-RPC. The init() method of an object that is published as a Web Service includes identifying the client side security certificate, id and password. That means the WS controls certificates for authentication and encryption.

The session also gave more details on Fast Web Services. Sun is working on a binary-encoded remote procedure call that uses SOAP APIs on either end of the connection. Fast Web Services is being proposed through a European telcom standards body. Sun is seeing 5-10x performance improvements over using XML-over-the-wire SOAP calls.

They also covered support for WS-I. The Oasis Group WS-I specification is a subset of SOAP 1.1 and WSDL 1.1. JAX-RPC will build WS-I code by using a command-line switch while compiling the Web Service code.

-Frank

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Frank Cohen, Founder, PushToTest, http://www.PushToTest.com, phone: 408 374 7426
Come to PushToTest for free open-source test automation solutions that test and monitor
Web-enabled applications, especially Web Services for scalability and reliability.


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