The advantages of web services are clear: they're platform-independent, firewall-friendly, and inherently loosely coupled. However, these advantages are obscured by a cloud of hype and a proliferation of jargon. What are SOAP, UDDI, WSDL, and JAXM? What about JAXR, tModels, category bags, WSFL, and other terms? Do they live up to their promises? Are they really the future of network computing, or are they a dead end? Java Web Services gives the experienced Java developer a way into the web services world. This book helps you understand what's going on, what the technologies mean and how they relate to one another, and how to use them. There are many emerging Java-based approaches available for working with web services. This book takes a broad look at several of these technologies and shows you how to put them to work in real life. You'll learn what's real and what isn't, what the technologies are really supposed to do and how they do it.

Java Web Services shows you how to use SOAP to perform remote method calls and message passing; how to use WSDL to describe the interface to a web service or understand the interface of someone else's service; and how to use UDDI to advertise (publish) and look up services in each local or global registry. Java Web Services also discusses security and interoperability issues, integration with other Java enterprise technologies such as EJB and JMS, the work being done on the JAXM and JAX-RPC packages, and interoperability with Microsoft's .NET services. The web services picture is still taking shape; there are many platforms and APIs to consider and many conflicting claims. The fit between the fundamental principles on which Java and web services are based means that Java will almost certainly be the predominant language for web services development. If you're a Java developer and want to climb on the web services bandwagon, or if you only want to learn what web services has to offer, you will find this book.