This document is a resource for software developers who develop WebLogic Web Services. It also contains information that is useful for business analysts and system architects who are evaluating WebLogic Server or considering the use of WebLogic Web Services for a particular application.
The topics in this document are relevant during the design and development phases of Web Services. The document also includes topics that are useful in solving application problems that are discovered during test and pre-production phases of a project.
This document does not address production phase administration, monitoring, or performance tuning Web Service topics. For links to WebLogic Server® documentation and resources for these topics, see Related Documentation.
It is assumed that the reader is familiar with Java Platform, Enterprise Edition (Java EE) Version 5 and Web Services concepts, the Java programming language, and Web technologies. This document emphasizes the value-added features provided by WebLogic Web Services and key information about how to use WebLogic Server features and facilities to get a WebLogic Web Service application up and running.
WebLogic Web Services Documentation Set
This document is part of a larger WebLogic Web Services documentation set that covers a comprehensive list of Web Services topics. The full documentation set includes the following documents:
WebLogic Web Services: Getting Started—Describes the basic knowledge and tasks required to program a simple WebLogic Web Service. This is the first document you should read if you are new to WebLogic Web Services. The guide includes Web Service overview information, use cases and examples, iterative development procedures, typical JWS programming steps, data type information, and how to invoke a Web Service.
WebLogic Web Services: Security—Describes how to program and configure message-level (digital signatures and encryption), transport-level, and access control security for a Web Service.
WebLogic Web Services: Advanced Programming—Describes how to program more advanced features, such as Web Service reliable messaging, callbacks, conversational Web Services, use of JMS transport to invoke a Web Service, and SOAP message handlers.
WebLogic Web Services: Reference—Contains all WebLogic Web Service reference documenation about JWS annotations, Ant tasks, reliable messaging WS-Policy assertions, security WS-Policy assertions, and deployment descriptors.
Guide to This Document
This document is organized as follows:
This chapter, Introduction and Roadmap, introduces the organization of this guide and the features of WebLogic Web Services.
Understanding WebLogic Web Services, provides an overview of how WebLogic Web Services are implemented, why they are useful, and the standard specifications that they implement or to which they conform.
Common Web Services Use Cases and Examples, provides a set of common use case and examples of programming WebLogic Web Services, along with step by step instructions on reproducing the example in your own environment.
Programming the JWS File, provides details about using JWS annotations in a Java file to implement a basic Web Service. The section discusses both standard (JSR-181) JWS annotations as well as WebLogic-specific ones.
Data Types and Data Binding, discusses the built-in and user-defined XML Schema and Java data types that are supported by WebLogic Web Services.
Invoking Web Services,describes how to write a client application (stand-alone or inside a WebLogic Web Service) that invokes a Web Service using the JAX-RPC stubs generated by the WebLogic Web Service Ant task clientgen.
Administering Web Services, provides information about the types of administrative tasks you typically perform with WebLogic Web Services and the different ways you can go about administering them: Administration Console, WebLogic Scripting Tool, and so on.
This document contains information specific to basic WebLogic Web Services topics. See WebLogic Web Services Documentation Set for a description of the related Web Services documentation.
For comprehensive guidelines for developing, deploying, and monitoring WebLogic Server applicationssee the following documents:
Programming WebLogic XMLis a guide to designing and developing applications that include XML processing.
Deploying Applications to WebLogic Server is the primary source of information about deploying WebLogic Server applications. Use this guide for both development and production deployment of your applications.
In addition to this document, BEA Systems provides a variety of code samples for Web Services developers. The examples and tutorials illustrate WebLogic Web Services in action, and provide practical instructions on how to perform key Web Service development tasks.
BEA recommends that you run some or all of the Web Service examples before programming your own application that use Web Services.
Avitek Medical Records Application (MedRec) and Tutorials
MedRec is an end-to-end sample Java EE application shipped with WebLogic Server that simulates an independent, centralized medical record management system. The MedRec application provides a framework for patients, doctors, and administrators to manage patient data using a variety of different clients.
MedRec demonstrates WebLogic Server and Java EE features, and highlights BEA-recommended best practices. MedRec is included in the WebLogic Server distribution, and can be accessed from the Start menu on Windows machines. For Linux and other platforms, you can start MedRec from the WL_HOME\samples\domains\medrec directory, where WL_HOME is the top-level installation directory for WebLogic Server.
As companion documentation to the MedRec application, BEA provides development tutorials that provide step-by-step procedures for key development tasks, including Web Service-specific tasks. See Application Examples and Tutorials for the latest information.
Web Services Examples in the WebLogic Server Distribution
WebLogic Server optionally installs API code examples in WL_HOME\samples\server\examples\src\examples\webservices, where WL_HOME is the top-level directory of your WebLogic Server installation. You can start the examples server, and obtain information about the samples and how to run them from the WebLogic Server Start menu.
Additional Web Services Examples Available for Download
Additional API examples for download can be found at http://dev2dev.bea.com. These examples include BEA-certified ones, as well as examples submitted by fellow developers.
Release-Specific WebLogic Web Services Information
For release-specific information, see these sections in WebLogic Server Release Notes:
Implementation of the Web Services for J2EE, Version 1.2 specification, which defines the standard Java EE runtime architecture for implementing Web Services in Java.
Implementation of the Java API for XML Web Services (JAX-WS), the centerpiece of a newly rearchitected API stack for Web services, the so-called "integrated stack" that includes JAX-WS 2.0, JAXB 2.0, and SAAJ 1.3. JAX-WS is designed to take the place of JAX-RPC in Web services and Web applications.
Asynchronous, loosely-coupled Web Services that take advantage of the following features, either separately or all together: Web Service reliable messaging, conversations, buffering, asynchronous request-response, and JMS transport.
Digital signatures and encryption of request and response SOAP messages, as specified by the WS-Security, as well as shared security contexts as described by the WS-SecureConversation specification.
