Zac Bowling’s Blog

“XML webservices are a fad. They are insecure and don’t provide any advantages over traditional methods of data transfer.”

I love XML webservices. Thats right, I said it. I end up defending this one a lot. XML webservices, as you may know, is a universal remote produre calling system that is based on a system of passing xml over http. Very basic idea. Many languages are getting starting to get support for Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP). SOAP is the technology behind XML Webservices. Webservices output WSDL documents to define the objects used in the SOAP object. Then the SOAP clients call back to the SOAP server using the format specified in the WSDL document. Its sounds complicated but most languages already support SOAP transparently if you know how to set it up. Its also a good think to know its benifits and also its limitations.

Webservices use HTTP protocal to transport data. This means that just about any client that can access the internet can use it. You could be behind a 3 proxys and a content filter and as long as the HTTP message states intact and can be return it should be find. A lot of people are behind firewalls that prevent everything but http or block incomming connections, but again webservices still work. (The SOAP documentation even document ways of making SOAP calls via SMTP, FTP, IIOS, and JMS but the only technology its actively designed for is HTTP)

Also, people complain about security with webservices, but since its all based on HTTP you can always use SSL to encrpty and protect your communications. If you need authentication, you can impliement your own system very easily or using a basic http authentication.

Most people just don’t know. Its so easy to use and it only takes minutes in Mono/.NET, Java, Perl, PHP and more. Very easy to upgrade and add new features and fixes for. You don’t get locked into one system because if you want to one day switch from an IIS webeserver using .NET to an Apache server running Jakarta using JAVA to host you SOAP, as long as you get the functions and types the same, you can switch without updating anyone of your clients. Basicly its like DCOM but that it works over the Internet, but your not limited to Windows based servers and you don’t have to update all your calling applications if you add something.

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Tags: Linux, Personal

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 3rd, 2004 at 8:53 pm and is filed under Personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.