However, there is still a lack of experience in the field - technical decision makers are struggling about when to apply which elements of the technology, and how to do so. This is a variation of the well-known "chicken and egg" problem: no project without an architectural decision, no architectural decision without experience, no experience without a project. This book provides technical guidance and helps the reader to cut the Gordian knot."

Key Topics

- Seven - sometimes controversial - Perspectives on Web services, covering the entire project lifecycle from opportunity identification to design, development, and deployment

- Introduction to Web services architectures as defined by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), and their Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) instantiations

- Understanding the Web services building blocks SOAP, WSDL, and UDDI

- Business scenarios and functional/non-functional requirements for Web services solutions

- Patterns for Web services projects and related architectural decisions

- Sample implementation platform: IBM WebSphere Studio integrated development environment and IBM WebSphere Application Server Version 5

- Full-scope implementation of an end-to-end case study, including hands-on instructions for development and deployment

- Apache SOAP 2.3 as well as JAX-RPC programming through JSR 109 and Apache Axis

- Interoperability between Microsoft .NET C# and Apache SOAP

- Runtime topologies for Web services solutions, deployment to WebSphere, transport layer and Web services security

- Best practices for design and management of Web services projects

- Trends such as Grid computing and the semantic Web

Features:

- Project-centric approach including lessons learnt and pitfalls to avoid

- Many sample project deliverables, including checklists to decide whether Web services are an appropriate solution to a given business problem

- Guide to W3C recommendations and other Web services specifications

- Full source code for a complete reference implementation

- Many rich illustrations, website support, and extensive pointers to other Web resources

This book will provide everything that a project team needs to know about design, development and deployment of Web services with the IBM WebSphere product family. Taking a realistic and pragmatic view on the subject, this book will be an essential part of every Java Web service developer's bookshelf.

Meet fictitious members of the target audience as they find their way through a first-of-a-kind Web services project, and hear their opinions on the topic at hand. Benefit from the real-world experience the authors gained during numerous client projects and workshops.