Web Services

Web services is a technology that is changing the way of e-commerce. Web services allow us to describe and deploy services in a consistent way so that they can be invoked in a secure and reliable manner. Web services, software written to link systems over the Internet, are intended to simplify the development of Web-based applications by automating the underlying processes needed for systems to interact online. Web services can be simple or complex. They range from inventory planning tools, mortgage calculators, to a more limited service of looking up a stock quote.

Today, Web services are widely deployed due to use of Extensible Markup Language (XML) and the availability of the Internet. XML is the foundation for the Web Service Description Language (WSDL), used to describe Web services in Sterling B2B Integrator. In addition, XML schemas define the structure and content of the XML documents that are shared.

The WSDL contains the information necessary to invoke a Web service, allowing others to access it. It includes (but is not limited to):
  • The endpoint URL of the Web service
  • The protocols accepted
  • Expected input and the data types for each operation
  • Output data type for each operation
Sterling B2B Integrator provides the following Web service functionality:
  • Ability to be both Web service consumer and provider
  • Seamless interoperability with common Web services consumers, supporting .Net 1.1 or 2.0, Axis 1.x or 2.0, XFire 1.2.6, or Java™ EES.
  • Ability to create a new Web service
  • Ability to generate and view WSDL
  • Ability to check in and validate third-party WSDL
  • Ability to check in and validate WSDL with HTTPS binding, and use it to create new services (Dynamic Service Creation, now platform-independent)
  • HTTPS supported as transport binding
  • Ability to create input and output schemas and associate them with a business process
  • Message reliability – Messages are received only once
  • Compliance with WS-I Basic Profile 1.1 and Basic Security Profile 1.0
  • Message-level and transport-level security
    • XML encryption and decryption supported
    • Encryption algorithm encrypts complete contents of SOAP message body
    • Public key encryption supported
    • Security for sending and receiving documents, including authentication of users
    • Flexible ordering of signature and encryption
  • Validation of SOAP message against input and output schemas
  • WSDL validation for WSDL checked into Sterling B2B Integrator