This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Binding a Web Service Endpoint
The LoanApplication composite would be more useful if its services were made accessible to clients that are outside the SCA domain—for example, to independent mortgage broker systems. In SCA, services are exposed to external clients over a binding. Bindings are used to specify the communication protocol over which a service is available, such as web services, RMI, or plain XML over HTTP (without the SOAP envelope). A service may be exposed over more than one binding, providing multiple ways for external clients to invoke it. For example, the LoanService could be bound to web services and a proprietary EDI protocol (see Figure 2.5).
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Figure 2.5 Binding the LoanService
Moreover, bindings can be added or removed in runtimes that support dynamic updates. For example, after clients have transitioned to using web services, the EDI binding for the LoanService interface could be deprecated and eventually phased out. Alternatively, a high-speed binary binding could be added for clients requiring improved performance (such as a binding based on the new W3C Efficient XML for Interchange format, EXI).
Service bindings are specified in the composite file using a combination of service and binding elements. Listing 2.12 binds the LoanService interface to web services.
Listing 2.12. Binding the LoanService Interface as a Web Service Endpoint
<service name="LoanService">
<binding.ws>
</service>
When LoanComponent is activated in the domain, the SCA infrastructure is responsible for making LoanService available as a web service.
The exact mechanics of how this binding is achieved are runtime-dependent. However, all SCA implementations must perform the following steps (which will generally be transparent to the person deploying a composite). First, if no WSDL is specified, the runtime will need to generate it based on the LoanService Java interface. This will entail creating a WSDL document similar to the one listed at the beginning of the chapter, but also including WSDL binding and WSDL service elements. (The algorithm for generating the WSDL is standardized by SCA.) After the WSDL is generated, the runtime will need to make the service and WSDL available to clients as a web service at the endpoint address listed in the WSDL. Depending on the runtime, this may involve deploying or dynamically configuring middleware such as creating a HTTP listener for the service on a particular machine. Fortunately, SCA hides the complexities of this process, so people deploying composites need not worry about how this is actually done.