Bookshelf v7.5: Web Services Overview

Integration Platform Technologies: Siebel eBusiness Application Integration Volume II > Web Services >

Web Services Overview

Web Services combine component-based development and Internet standards and protocols that include HTTP, XML, Simple Object Application Protocol (SOAP), and Web Services Description Language (WSDL). Web Services can be reused regardless of how they are implemented. Web Services can be developed on any computer platform and in any development environment as long as they can communicate with other Web Services using these common protocols.

Web Services can be implemented in Siebel eBusiness applications as business services or workflow processes. The Siebel Web Services Framework can consume a WSDL document and create a proxy business service through the WSDL Import Wizard provided in Siebel Tools.

To specify the structure of XML used in the body of SOAP messages, Web Services use an XML Schema Definition (XSD) standard. The XSD standard describes an XML document structure in terms of XML elements and attributes. It also specifies abstract data types, and defines and extends the value domains.

Users or programs interact with Web Services by exchanging XML messages that conform to Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP). For Web Services support, SOAP provides a standard SOAP envelope, standard encoding rules that specify mapping of data based on an abstract data type into an XML instance and back, and conventions for how to make remote procedure calls (RPC) using SOAP messages.

Supported Web Services Standards

The following are the Web Services standards supported by Siebel application:

Web Services Description Language (WSDL) 1.1. For details, see http://www.w3.org/TR/2001/NOTE-wsdl-20010315.

Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) 1.1. For details, see http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/NOTE-SOAP-20000508.

Hypertext Transfer Protocol -- HTTP/1.0. For details, see http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc1945/rfc1945.

Extensible Markup Language (XML) 1.0. For details, see http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/REC-xml-19980210

XML Schema. For details, see http://www.w3.org/TR/2001/REC-xmlschema-1-20010502, and http://www.w3.org/TR/2001/REC-xmlschema-2-20010502

NOTE: For more details on supported elements and attributes, see XML Reference: Siebel eBusiness Application Integration Volume V.

Web Services Inbound Dispatcher Defined

The Web Service Inbound Dispatcher is a business service that is called by an inbound transport server component (or an outbound Web Service dispatcher) and analyzes input XML, converts XML data to business service method arguments, and calls the appropriate method for the appropriate service. After the called method has finished, the Web Service Inbound Dispatcher converts the output arguments to XML data, or creates a SOAP fault block (if there is an exception) and then returns the XML embedded in the SOAP envelope.

Web Services Support for Transport Headers

The outbound Web Service dispatcher supports input arguments for user-defined (or standard) transport headers.

The following is the format for the outbound Web Service dispatcher input arguments:

Name: siebel_transport_header:headerName

Value: Header value

The following are examples of input arguments.

Name: siebel_transport_header:UserDefinedHeader

Value: myData

Name: siebel_transport_header:Authorization

Value: 0135DFDJKLJ