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
--
Frank Cohen, Founder, PushToTest, http://www.PushToTest.com, phone: 408
374 7426
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