ASPnews.com -- Analysis : Sun Leads Even in the Web Services Tool Category

Web services represent a new architectural paradigm for software applications. To utilize the Web services technology to the hilt, Web services should be developed from all various kinds of software components on various technologies, languages, and platforms. This is the reason why different kinds of software featured among the finalists when Developer.com held its annual contest for Web Service (or Related Tool) of the Year.

This article will discuss each of the finalist products in Developer.com’s Web Service of the Year 2005 contest. We will also cover whether this selection shows any emerging trend or trends about the software industry.

Developer.com’s Web Service of the Year 2005: The Finalists

The finalists of the Web Service of the Year 2005 contest were (in alphabetical order):

Apache Axis
Java Web Service Developer Pack
Microsoft® MapPoint® Web Service
NuSOAP
ParaSoft SOAPtest^TM

1. Apache Axis

Apache Axis is a widely popular implementation of the SOAP submission to W3C. Axis is essentially a SOAP engine — a framework for constructing SOAP processors such as clients, servers, gateways, and so forth. The current version of Axis is written in Java, but a C++ implementation of the client side of Axis is being developed.

Provider

Axis is an open source project. It is available at Apache Axis.

Features of Axis 1.2

A simple standalone server
SOAP engine
A server that plugs into servlet engines such as Tomcat
Extensive support for the Web Service Description Language (WSDL)
Emitter tooling that generates Java classes from WSDL
A tool for monitoring TCP/IP packets
Documentation and sample programs

Reasons for selection

Speed
Flexibility
Stability
Component-oriented deployment
Transport framework

Downloads

Both source code and binaries can be downloaded from Axis Releases.

2. Java Web Service Developer Pack

Java WSDP is a free, integrated toolkit developers can use to build, test, and deploy XML applications, as well as Web services and Web applications with the latest technologies and standards implementations. Java WSDP gives developers the ability to begin designing to the latest specifications and profiles from standards bodies and industry consortia, such as W3C, OASIS, and WS-I, even prior to the support becoming available in commercial Sun products.

With the newest release (1.5) now available, developers will be able to create XML and Web services-enabled applications that are secure, interoperable, and portable across different platforms and devices. This release contains some exciting Web services security features, and with support for securing JAX-RPC applications, security operations can now be configured either at the level of a WSDL service, port, or operation. Java WSDP has been tested on the Sun Java System Application Server, Sun Java System Web Server, and Tomcat, and on Windows, Linux, and Solaris platforms.