View Full Version : Achieving web services location transparency
mcarlson
09-20-2004, 11:57
I just posted a lengthy post (http://www.wmusers.com/blog/2004/09/achieving-web-services-location.shtml) to my blog (http://www.wmusers.com/blog/mark.shtml) discussing the challenges associated with achieving web services location transparency. I plan to post another entry shortly on the topic of using intelligent intermediaries to address this issue.
Mark
mcarlson
09-20-2004, 14:10
Achieving Web Services Location Transparency - Part 2 (http://www.wmusers.com/blog/2004/09/achieving-web-services-location_20.shtml) posted.
Mark,
Great posts, thanks. I'm wondering though, about something I heard in a webMethods Fabric webinar a while back. The idea was put forward that at some point webMethods would be integrating Fabric with the Broker in order to allow Web Service location transparency via pub/sub. Now I haven't thought through that much, but even before the webinar it seemed to me that this approach might hold lots of potential, so I was especially intrigued when that plan was discussed. Do you have any thoughts on the pros/cons of such a beast, or know anything more about webMethods take on it?
mcarlson
09-20-2004, 17:11
My take is that integration between Fabric and Broker would be provided primarily to support standards such as WS-Reliable Messaging (http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/download.php/8910/WS-Reliability-2004-08-23-diff.pdf) and some merged combination of WS-Eventing (http://msdn.microsoft.com/webservices/default.aspx?pull=/library/en-us/dnglobspec/html/ws-eventing.asp) and WS-Notification (http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=wsn).
I'm not sure that integration with Broker by itself does much to help with location transparency, but I might be missing something obvious.
I do see several similarities between the functions of an "intelligent intermediary" such as Fabric and the functions performed by webMethods Broker. In essence, the job of both is to be a high-speed software message switch that maintains meta-data about consumers / broker clients and producers (more broker clients).
Mark