Ever thought your applications team could become a revenue stream?
That is effectively what Web services is about, as long as you
don't get worn down by the nitty-gritty of technology. Ross Bentley
reports
If you want to get to the bottom of what Web services really are,
you have got to put all the acronyms and protocols surrounding them
to one side for a moment.
Mike Lucas, technology director at Compuware, says some of the
confusion about Web services arises because people get too bogged
down with the enabling technologies. "What is more important is the
concept," he says.
"It might help to think of Web services in terms of your
electricity supply. You don't generate your own electricity, you
just plug in there. The electricity is delivered in agreed standard
units and you have a meter telling you how much is being consumed."
He says Web services will mean that companies will no longer have
to build applications in-house but will instead be able to hook
into applications already out there on the Web. "Expect to see new
companies providing Web services sprouting up," Lucas
predicts.
Web services are generally regarded as the next stage in the
evolution of the Internet. Beyond static Web pages and
transactional Web sites, Web services are about applications
talking to other applications over the Internet via XML-based
middleware standards.
Earlier approaches to integration included electronic data
interchange and electronic banking initiatives, but these were
expensive as participants paid carrier transmission fees.
With the advent of ubiquitous, reliable, secure Internet
connections and a standard communication system in Extensible
Markup Language (XML), companies created software to establish
electronic marketplaces. These started out as independent companies
but they have turned into industry-sponsored consortia, along the
lines of Covisint, which was formed by major players in the car
making industry.
Jason Vokes, European manager for software house Borland, says that
while these marketplaces have been used successfully for auctions
and other sales transactions, many more business processes can be
automated between companies. The concept of the Web service is to
make any business process available for business partners to
use.
Over the past few years work has been under way to create a
well-defined framework, known as EBXML, for encoding information.
The interface to a Web service can be defined with the new Web
services description language, while the Simple Object Access
Protocol (Soap) defines a mechanism for the transmission of
information.
"Not only will it enable you to integrate applications within a
company, you will be able to connect with any application on any
system in the world as XML and Soap are platform-independent," says
Vokes.
He says organisations will be able to look up these applications
using UDDI (Universal Description, Discovery and Integration). This
is an XML-based registry that businesses can use to list their
names, products, locations and the Web services they offer on the
Internet.
"An early example of Web services are companies that have
integrated with a carrier's system, such as Federal Express or
DHL," Vokes says. "If someone rings their call centre and wants to
know the status of a widget that has been sent out using Fedex, the
call centre operative can add value by going into the Fedex systems
and finding where the widget is."
Kevin Malone, technical strategist at IBM, thinks that most of the
development in Web services will be in the business-to-business
arena. "Areas like the insurance industry where there is a lot of
to-ing and fro-ing of data will be able to make use of Web
services," he says. "You can see retailers adopting them, for
example, where a customer purchases an item online but wants to
choose from a selection of delivery companies or a range of payment
systems."
Other possibilities come from the likes of online auction sites
eBay or QXL which are talking about making their core auction
processes available for other companies to use.
However, there are several issues that must be ironed out before we
reach the open interchange of application data that we have been
promised. These include:
- Payment for Web services - there are a variety of
micro-payment, subscription, and per usage models and time will
tell which are adopted
- The security implications - firms will be opening up their
applications on to the Web
- Integration between internal and external systems - companies
which run or use Web services will need to plan and test their
networks to ensure they have the sufficient capacity.
Lucas talks about the need for stricter certification of services.
While Web service applications are listed in UDDI directories, he
asks whether providers of Web services can guarantee quality of
service within agreed boundaries. Service level agreements are on
Malone's agenda too, particularly for longer-running transactions.
Bola Rotibi, an analyst at Ovum, fears that Web services may go the
way of previous attempts to create open standards. "The standards
landscape is littered with specifications that have too many
overlapping functions. Web services are in danger of becoming
fragmented before they are given a chance to work," she says.
Suppliers must work together to grow the market, says Rotibi, and
online marketplaces and trusted service providers will have a major
role to play.
She says the first stage of Web services development will happen
inside companies. "Organisations will concentrate on getting to
grips with Web services technology and apply it to simple internal
application development," Rotibi explains. "It will be some time
and require a more robust framework before users are prepared to
use Web services for integration with external applications in the
way that suppliers are hyping about."
Malone concurs, and sets out a slow step progression on how IT
departments can dip a toe into the Web services water. "When a new
in-house application comes online, set up a UDDI directory for it,"
he says. "Set up clear interfaces and then expand by extending them
to well-established partners. Eventually you will feel ready to
publish the service on the Internet."