For J2EE developers, exposing existing EJBs (Enterprise JavaBeans) and Java applications as Web services, as well as one-click deployment, can be accomplished via BEA's Web Service Builder. Unlike the other products we tested, however, generating Web services from an existing XML schema was not supported. The ability to create a Web service from a WSDL file is provided, but it's tucked away and hard to find. We developed our echoInt service from scratch within Workshop, and found it to be a pleasant process.
Also notably absent was support for XML-SIG and XML-Encryption. Although extensive support for existing security mechanisms is provided--and in fact blew away the competition with the number of options offered by WebLogic Server--the lack of support for XML-specific security detracted from the product's overall appeal. Support for HTTP Basic/Digest was welcome, as was full SSL support, including client and server certificates, but we would have liked to see at least some support for upcoming XML security specifications, as is offered by Cape Clear and Systinet. BEA indicates that support for these specifications will be included in the next release.
BEA lets you use XML maps via WebLogic Workshop. These maps allow true loose coupling of Web services by mapping specific XML elements in SOAP requests to Java methods and parameters. This allows the underlying Web services code to be changed without requiring a change to clients. Changing our echoInt Web service from a DOC/LIT model to an RPC/ENC model required only a change in the properties of the JWS (Java Web Service). The other products we tested offer a similar approach, but their implementations represented a marked difference from Sun's offering, which generates a different set of code to support each model and therefore required that a new project be built.
BEA's management interface is extensive but falls short of Systinet's granularity in terms of Web services monitoring. The only product to come close to the level of sophistication offered by WebLogic in the general server-management arena was Novell, and even our winner fell short of providing the level of detail offered by BEA. Administrators accustomed to having complete control over every detail of their application-server configuration from a single, unified console will not be disappointed in BEA's offering. We'd still like to see more detail in all the products regarding Web services, as they present unique challenges in monitoring and management that are not easily covered by traditional J2EE management and monitoring mechanisms.
For example, a single endpoint may provide multiple messages, as does WeatherService with its WeatherByZipCode and getWeatherByCode. It's important to provide monitoring of not only the endpoint, but message-specific access information. Increasing the logging level in products from the default to Debug may provide this level of detail, but increasing the data being logged to such a level can degrade performance, and it means wading through information that may not be of interest to the administrator. Vendors need to address this issue and provide a means of monitoring Web services-specific information without degrading performance and without requiring a lot of extraneous information in the logs.
WebLogic 7.0 with WebLogic Workshop. For development, both products can be obtained free via a renewable 12-month subscription license. For deployment, WebLogic Server 7.0 is $10,000 per CPU. BEA Systems (800) 817-4BEA, (408) 570-8000. www.bea.com
Cape Clear CapeConnect 4 Server
Cape Clear's Web services platform consists of the CapeConnect 4 server and CapeStudio 4, an elegant IDE offering with a smorgasbord of options for developing all aspects of Web services. Included in the distribution were a Web services test client, XML and XSLT editors, and an integrated WSDL editor (also offered separately as a free download). Options on the server side are a bit more limited, with no integrated monitoring of Web services activity, as is offered by Novell and Systinet, and without a single, integrated console for managing distributed instances of CapeConnect. On its own, it's not enterprise-class, but if deployed into an existing corporate-class J2EE application server, the product should do just fine.
Although Cape Clear's offerings are completely J2EE-based, its products do not support deployment of J2EE-standard WAR or EAR files, as is found in more traditional application-server-based implementations, such as Sun's Sun ONE Application Server 7 and Novell's Extend 4.0. While CapeConnect can be deployed into a J2EE application server, deployment of Web services to CapeConnect is still limited.
Cape Clear uses Web services to deploy, publish and manage Web services deployed to CapeConnect, whether it's deployed as a standalone or within a J2EE application server. This is a common thread for platforms specializing in Web services. Iona and Systinet, both offering a standalone deployment configuration, also take advantage of Web services as a deployment model. We liked this model during testing--configuration within the IDE for deployment was greatly simplified, and we could deploy our echoInt service with the click of a button and minimal configuration. However, it's difficult to move from one platform to another, since a service packaged by one platform cannot easily be deployed to another platform without repackaging, the management model becomes proprietary in nature.
CapeConnect 4 Server and CapeStudio 4, $1,500 per developer. Cape Clear Software, (888) 227-3439, (781) 622-2258. www.capeclear.com
Systinet Corp. Web Application and Services Platform (WASP) Server for Java 4.5; Web Application and Services Platform (WASP) Server for C++ 4.5
Systinet WASP took us by surprise by incorporating corporate-class features into a platform and making it all look easy. Systinet's was the only product we tested to provide message-level security from the administration console as well as detailed monitoring on a per-service basis. Although Novell did an excellent job offering monitoring of Extend via the management console, no one came close to providing the level of detail available in Systinet's console. For our deployed echoInt service it was possible to examine the number of requests (both total, successful and failed) as well as average, longest and last transaction times. Letting us apply security to our Web service was also impressive. We could allow only specified users to access our echoInt service from the console--without server-side code modification. Other vendors should take Systinet's lead and incorporate this type of functionality.
Systinet also uses Web services to manage Web services; therefore, deployment is not J2EE-standard. Like BEA, Cape Clear, Novell and Sun, Systinet takes advantage of Ant scripts to assist in packaging and deploying services. Ant support is becoming a de facto standard for Java-based development because of its portability and usefulness. This open-source Java "make" replacement is supported by many of the most popular commercial and open source Java IDEs, such as Cape Clear CapeStudio, Eclipse, IBM WebSphere, IntelliJ IDEA and Sun ONE Studio. Of the products we tested, only Iona's failed to support Ant.
Unfortunately, Systinet's is the only offering in our review without a replaceable XML parser. While other products can use a commonly available parser, like Apache's Xerces, or a custom-developed parser, only Systinet disallows replacement of this integral piece. The company says that using JAXP (Java API for XML Processing) to allow replacement of the parser would cause a performance degradation. Our tests showed that this is not likely the case, and we'd prefer being able to switch to a faster, more flexible parser if one becomes available.
Systinet is also the only vendor providing direct support for a language that is not Java-based; WASP supports C++ as well as C (provided it's compiled with a C++ compiler). Sun does support C++ via its NSAPI (Netscape API), and CapeClear can support it via CORBA. While the model of deployment is different--services are built into standalone servers rather than deployed to an application server--the performance was outstanding, and the code for our echoInt Web service was almost exactly the same, taking into account the slight syntactical differences between Java and C++.
Web Application and Services Platform (WASP) Server for Java 4.5; Web Application and Services Platform (WASP) Server for C++ 4.5. WASP Developer: free; WASP Server for Java: free for development, test and single-CPU deployments, $2,000 per CPU thereafter. WASP Server for C++: free for development, test and single-CPU deployments, $2,000 per CPU thereafter. Systinet Corp., (617) 868-2224. www.systinet.com
Sun's Sun ONE Application Server 7
Sun's Sun ONE Application Server 7 (AS7) screamed its way through our performance tests, offering the most scalable Web services environment among the products we tested (see "How We Tested Web Services," page 48). Its ability to process requests as load increased made it stand out from the pack. A standard J2EE deployment model put it on even terms with Novell and makes it easy for administrators familiar with a J2EE environment to manage Web services.
Sun's IDE, Sun ONE Studio, is not only free, it's also a comprehensive J2EE development environment that simply adds Web services as an additional option. The capability to develop a Web service or Web service client from a remote or local WSDL is shared by all the products we tested. We found the process of building and deploying a Web service in Sun's offering clunky compared with tools from Cape Clear and Novell, but it does work as advertised. We also noted that more code was generated by the application-server-based products in general, making the deployed services larger than those created by Cape Clear, Iona and Systinet.
Sun's submission was hindered by its lack of high-availability options--clustering, load balancing and failover--and a complete lack of support for XML security standards. These features are reserved for the enterprise edition of the product, which is scheduled for release in June.
Application Server 7 does, however, match BEA WebLogic and Novell Extend in supporting a wide range of authentication and authorization mechanisms, including LDAP, ADS, HTTP Basic/Digest and IP-based ACLs (access-control lists). Overall, we'd like to see more integration at the message level for each of these mechanisms.
Sun's Sun ONE Application Server 7 (AS7), unlimited free development seats for both platform and standard editions, $0/CPU for platform edition and $2,000/CPU for standard edition. Sun Microsystems, (800) 786-7638, (650) 960-1300. www.sun.com
IonaOrbix E2A Web Services Integration Platform with XMLBus Edition 5.4
Iona's XMLBus is a platform, like Cape Clear's and Systinet's offerings, but it requires the use of an application server regardless of deployment. When it is deployed in a standalone configuration, a Tomcat J2EE application server is deployed as well to provide XMLBus with the framework necessary to perform. XMLBus also can be integrated into BEA's WebLogic, IBM's WebSphere Application Server and Iona's own Orbix E2A Application Server. The integration is performed during installation, making it a breeze to deploy into an existing environment.
XMLBus offers some additional value-adds in its IDE Web Services Builder, including a workflow component that makes developing composite Web services a snap. Iona says it expects WS-Choreography support to be included as soon as the standard is complete, which makes the platform an excellent choice for building collaborative and workflow-based applications that take advantage of Web services. Even without support for WS-Choreography, XMLBus' current solution is unique among those we tested in its support of choreographing the flow of business logic among disparate Web services.
XMLBus ships with a private UDDI server, intended for internal use only. Although this is useful for internal publishing of
services, we preferred the customizable taxonomies offered by Systinet's private UDDI server. Iona's default UDDI registry searches are based on the premise that services are public, and therefore require a search by organization, which is unnecessary in an internal-only scenario. The ability to customize taxonomies would be a good addition.
Orbix E2A Web Services Integration Platform, XMLBus Edition 5.4, $495 per development license. Iona Technologies, (800) 672-4948, (781) 902-8000. www.iona.com
Lori Macvittie, a Network Computing technology editor, has been a software developer, network administrator and member of the technical architecture team for a global transportation and logistics organization. Write to her at lmacvittie@nwc.com.
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