Manipulate XML Service Definitions with Java Programming

A Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) typically exports a range of
services. For XML service modelling and subsequent consumption of
those services by users (people, machines, or other services), Java
technology provides powerful mechanisms to handle XML data, which in
turn provides a key foundation for using SOA concepts. SOA is still
unfolding, and many of the big software vendors are still developing
their SOA offerings. As a result, the SOA area is currently a complex
soup of technologies that includes Java Business Integration (JBI),
Intelligent Event Processing, and Business Process Execution Language
(BPEL) servers. It's entirely likely that user organizations that
intend to reap the benefits of SOA will have to invest heavily before
converging on a solution. By making SOA so complex, the industry might
well inadvertently pave the way for vendor lock-in, even though one
of the promises of SOA is standards-based, component-oriented,
vendor-independent computing. Is it possible for user organizations
to gain some useful operational SOA experience before the expensive
migration process? In answer to this question, this article
demonstrates a few important SOA principles with straightforward XML
and some Java code. It doesn't attempt to cover everything in the
SOA universe; instead, the coverage is restricted to a few key areas.
For example, you can conceivably use RSS to distribute XML service
definitions. However, for this article's example, the transport
mechanism uses Java facilities. The merit of such a focused approach
is that Java developers in user organizations can use the ideas to
build their own simple pilot SOA. Such pilot schemes can help the
organization realize the business benefits of SOA. Included in the
latter are modelling business services as computational services,
user self-service, greater automation, and more responsive services.
You can implement a migration like the one described as a stand-alone
pilot that operates in parallel to existing business processes. More Information