Web Services Notes veryard projects > so > web services

we offer	web service issues	material	links
consultancy management briefings independent advice on tools and methods	Advent of Web Services (versus objects or components) Are web services something entirely new, or are they simply software components in a new (more difficult, more complicated) guise? Architecture How do you compose large numbers of web services into effective, flexible and manageble applications? How can you use web services to build the component-based business? Strategy and Process Follow our 10-point web service strategy Trust In some ways, the use of web services may involve a smaller security risk than the use of third party software components. Role of Telecoms Do the telecoms companies have a natural advantage in the web services arena? How are they exploiting this advantage?	SOA service oriented architecture CBSE component-based software engineering CBB component-based business web services (pdf) Web Services for Business Intelligence Joined-up Services Security for SOA	recent material contact us

What Are Web Services? veryard projects > cbse > web services > definition

By analogy, what would you understand by the term "phone service"?

• The provision of telephones.
• The maintenance of telephones (including sanitization)
• The provision of telephone connection
• The ordering or delivery of some other service via telephone.
• Other

The Advent of Web Services veryard projects > cbse > web services > advent

(This is a general destination for technological progress, not merely in software.  Technical goods are gradually refined into disembodied services, provided automatically and invisibly to the consumer. Since the dawn of the modern era, products have been named by what they no longer require - the horseless carriage, wireless telegraphy. On this basis, web services might be thought of as resourceless resources.)

Web services also support the construction of information systems that span multiple companies - the component-based business. Instead of integration over a single enterprise, we can start to think of integration over an entire commuity of interest - such as a complete supply chain, or whole marketplace.

Ten-Point Web Service Strategy veryard projects > cbse > web services > strategy

1	Understand an enterprise as a network of services.		6	Identify strategic relationships.
2	Determine the shape of the service landscape.		7	Create stable interfaces to support strategic relationships.
3	Determine the source of value in the service landscape.		8	Negotiate common vocabulary and behaviour.
4	Identify strategic leverage points in the network		9	Establish trust requirements.
5	Occupy or triangulate the strategic points.		10	Evolve network towards wholeness and articulation.

Strategic Leverage

Trust -- Are Web Services More Secure than Software Components? veryard projects > cbse > web services > trust

One important class of security mechanism involves HOW – the way you operate a suspicious software component. One of the main security mechanisms associated with Java is the Sandbox pattern, which provides some level of protection against some types of security violation. From a security point of view, the beauty of web services is that it apparently bypasses all the problems with mobile code. The service provider shouldn’t need to execute any code on your machine at all – the service provider’s machine becomes a Virtual or Remote Sandbox.

This argument suggests that web services may be intrinsically safer than installed or downloaded software components in terms of crashing or infecting your computer system. A web service has no access to any of your data or other system resources, except what you actually send down the wire, and what is returned – and this data traffic can be monitored, recorded and controlled. A web service can only commit a security violation on your computer system if it is working in concert with some software installed on your system – such as a Trojan. (A combined attack by a rogue web service and a Trojan could be extremely damaging.)

However, there are other types of security violation where web services may represent a greater risk than installed components. If you’re passing your data to a third party for processing, you have to trust the third-party not to abuse the data. This may include privacy violations, breach of commercial confidentiality, intellectual property or copyright, or whatever. If you’re using a third party supplier to perform some important step of your business process, then the business process itself may be compromised by improper or rogue behavior.

These effects are impossible to test out – for three reasons. Firstly, rogue behavior is rarely random – and can usually remain concealed during tests. Secondly, the implementation of a web service can be altered by the supplier at any time, without notifying the consumer. Thirdly, the web service itself may use further web services – so even if the primary supplier is not a rogue, he may be unwittingly dependent on a rogue further down the chain.
 

	This is an extract from an article in the April 2001 issue of Interact.  For the full article, plus relevant patterns and discussion forum. please register at the CBDi Forum website (Silver/Gold membership required for access to articles, but free Bronze membership will give you access to lots of other resources, including the pattern catalog).
	trust

Role of Telecoms in Web Services veryard projects > cbse > web services > role of telecoms

There is certainly some exciting stuff now going on in the telecoms research labs.  Just take a look at Bell Labs Technical Journal and BT Technical Journal.

But will telecoms companies be able to exploit this position? Or are we looking at a repetition of the situation Xerox got into - where Xerox PARC became a honeypot, into which everyone in the industry dipped a paw except Xerox itself!

Some promising products and services are coming out of the telecoms companies.  Several telecoms companies (including Avaya and BT) are building their call centre management and network policy management expertise into fully functional Customer Relationship Management products - but with a quite different flavour to traditional CRM software packages. Syntegra has been implementing a range of networked information systems based on shared services - which it calls COINS (Community of Interest Networked System) - including eGovernment and Product Data Management.

However, many telecoms companies are struggling to manage large and complex legacies - of equipment, software and people - and will undoubtedly find it hard to roll out these products and services. There are some important technology transfer issues at stake, as well as business strategy,  and it is not at all clear that the telecoms companies will be able to convert their technical advantage into a strategic business advantage.
 

Telecoms Companies: Please contact us for strategic consultancy, advice and support.

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