Professional Open Source Web Services [Illustrated] [Paperback]

P.G. Sarang (Author), Christopher Browne (Author), Dietrich Ayala (Author), Vivek Chopra (Author)

Book Description

Series: Programmer to Programmer | Publication Date: July 2002

Web Services is a new paradigm and probably one of the most discussed subjects amongst the IT solution providers. It is a simple concept that enables grand integration of various blocks of existing web infrastructure. It uses XML based messaging standards like SOAP, WSDL, UDDI which will provide solutions to the industry for many more years. Open Source products like Linux, Apache, Perl, PHP are popular robust parts of web infrastructure. The rising need of SOAP based web services has prompted the development of libraries for various open source languages in line with some industry efforts around .NET and J2EE framework.

What does this book cover?

- A comprehensive discussion of Web Services Architecture and chemistry behind it

- XML based messaging standards like XML-RPC, SOAP, WSDL and UDDI and their details

- SOAP implementations in various languages like Perl, Java, PHP, C++, Ruby and Python with real world examples

- In depth coverage of Web Services using Apache AXIS and SOAP::Lite

- EJB Web Services using JBoss

- Case study of designing web services from legacy application

- Embedded Web Services in java applets and devices using Open Source product kSOAP

- A complete chapter on Web Services security considerations and developing secure web services since E-Commerce relies heavily upon security

- The book is organized to provide separate coverage on theoratical and practical aspects of web Services blended with Open Source products

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Kapil Apshankar has three years experience in knowldege management, i18n, L10n and manufacturing domains. He works as a team leader for a major software corporation in India. Currently he is working with web services in all their forms to devise ways and means to take this nascent technology to its limits. His other interests include Linux, networking and distributed computing.

Dietrich Ayala has spent the past four years designing and developing web applications. He feels fulfilled when programming with PHP and XML. Dietrich currently works for NuSphere Corporation developing Web Services tools for PHP developers.He holds certifications in E-commerce programming and XML technologies from the University of Washington.

Christopher Browne is a consultant with Sabre Inc., in the Human Resources and Payroll Systems organization supporting these systems for AMR (American Airlines). He has been involved since 1996 with conversions at AMR to use SAP R/3 for financial accounting and for HR and payroll systems. He was previously a Systems Engineer with SHL Systemhouse (now EDS) in their SAP R/3 practice. He is also the treasurer of the North Texas Linux Users Group (NTLUG). Chris holds a Bachelor of Mathematics degree from the University of Waterloo, Joint Honors Co-op Chartered Accountancy and Computer Science, and a Master of Science degree in Systems Science from the University of Ottawa, Canada.

Vivek Chopra has eight years of experience in software design and development, the last two years of which have been in Web Services and various XML technologies. He is the co-author of Professional ebXML Foundations and Professional XML Web Services (both from Wrox Press). He is also a committer for UDDI4J, an open source Java API for UDDI. His other areas of experience and interest include compilers, middleware, clustering, GNU/Linux and mobile computing. He is currently consulting in the domain area of Web Services. Vivek holds a Bachelor's degree in Electronics and a Master's in Computer Science, both from Pune University, India. He lives and works in the beautiful San Francisco Bay Area.

Tim McAllister is a software architect, engineer, author and conference speaker with over a decade of experience in the industry. His work is focused on object oriented analysis and design, distributed systems, Web services, Java, XML and related Internet technologies. Tim currently spends his days at Hewlett Packard, where he says they are "enabling pervasive interoperability of nomadic devices". Until recently he was a senior architect at Nike working with the B2C and B2B teams.

Dr. P.G. Sarang is one of the leading software architects in the industry. With more than 20 years of IT experience, Dr. Sarang provides consulting in architecting and designing solutions to clients worldwide. He is an ex-professor of Computer Engg of University of Notre Dame, USA. Dr. Sarang is an invited speaker at many international conferences and has many research papers to his credit. He is a regular contributor of technical articles in many international journals and has co-authored several books for Wrox. My special thanks to Chandan, Rahul and Madhav for providing valuable inputs during this writing. I dedicate this writing to my son Sanket who co-operated by not bothering me with his studies during the time of writing.

Product Details

• Paperback: 450 pages
• Publisher: Wrox Press (July 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1861007469
• ISBN-13: 978-1861007469
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 7.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,489,952 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good one with plenty of reference info, August 5, 2002

By 

Rob Lowes (Texas, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Professional Open Source Web Services (Paperback)

Fairly decent book(why all the negative reviews here?). Covers the widely available web services fairly well, but could have done better by detailing more on SOAP than XML-RPC. Has good coverage of the three main service technologies and lots of reference material on diffrent servers including ones based on Java and Perl. Topics on exposing stateless and stateful EJBs as web services and embedded web services are hard to find elsewhere. Packs a lot of info in one book, where each topic is qualified to be a book by itself. Has lots of sample code and interoperability info. Good value for money.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good referece book, August 5, 2002

By 

Brian Stokes (Raleigh, NC, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Professional Open Source Web Services (Paperback)

This book covers lots of open source web services...although not in detail, its a good book for intermediate professionals who want to switch between technologies. Good coverage of UDDI, SOAP, WSDL technologies and also covers wide range of languages and servers for quick reference.
Though seems to jump abruptly between topics, which could be due to targeted audience of experienced developers, this one seems to try to motivate open source efforts in light of the hype around .NET and J2EE.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Set of disparate articles:(, August 1, 2002

By 

Dave Hilton (WA, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Professional Open Source Web Services (Paperback)

I received this book, hoping to get some inside clues on how SOAP and XML RPC is implemented using Open Source Technologies.
I found the book to be full of general fluff, patch-up and a series of disparate articles on Perl, Python, C++????? etc.

Here is why i trounced this book:

1.HALF TRUTHS: At the beginning it brings this corny motivation for SOAP that it's a better way for web page scraping. Hello? SOAP works along EDI and Corba. It's a simplified version of both that makes it easier and language/platform independent for those cases that don't need the full functionality of EDI or Corba.

2.SELF ASSERTIONS - Well, then there is a quote, where the author blankly asserts that posts are more useful then gets. I'm familiar with the debate about the pros and cons. But, an author just asserting one is better and putting as a reason 'trust me, baby, I'm smart', is just so pretentious.

3.ZERO SCOPE: To put it plain from flipping around in the book, I didn't find any good information - very broad but Zero scope; and the authors just disgusted me with their way of writing and assertions.

4.INCOMPLETE 1: There is very little to zero coverage on XML RPC when compared to SOAP; but i can understand that it is more out of the point 2 syndrome.

5.INCOMPLETE 2: Coverage of automatically generating interface descriptions/ a server implementation to do the same, is surprisingly incomplete

Outside of all this, the lack of practical treatment is altogether amiss except for the big cheese example at the back, which in all probabilities fail to summarise the book.

This book would have received a bigger readership if all these disparate articles (use of 'articles' in lieu of 'chapters' intended) are pinned up online. I recommend this book to the err... SHREDDER.