Service-oriented architecture (SOA) is an evolution of distributed computing based on the request/reply design paradigm for synchronous and asynchronous applications. An application's business logic or individual functions are modularized and presented as services for consumer/client applications. What's key to these services is their loosely coupled nature; i.e., the service interface is... more »

Service-oriented architecture is one of the most talked about and least understood topics in IT today. It even has its own “Dummies” book. As an approach to building IT systems, SOA connects applications across a network via a common communications protocol, allowing organizations to reuse old software, often with the help of Web services. Saugatuck Technology predicts that up to two-thirds of IT departments will have a limited or full SOA... more »

If you want to learn how to use JavaScript to work with XML data, you've come to the right place. This three-part article series starts by showing you how to obtain XML documents. It is excerpted from chapter 21 of JavaScript: The Definitive Guide, Fifth Edition, written by David Flanagan (O'Reilly; ISBN: 0596101996). Copyright © 2006 O'Reilly Media, Inc. All rights reserved. Used with permission from the publisher. Available from booksellers or direct from O'Reilly Media.... more »

XQuery offers a rich set of features for working with the structure of an XML document, offering you compelling abilities not possible with XPath or XSLT. In a sense, it's SQL for XML. In this article, Sowmya Hubert & Binildas C. A. look at the Java API for XQuery and how you can use it in your SOA applications.... more »

Web services seem like they should be an enterprise topic, yet JAX-WS 2.0 is part of Java SE, not EE. One of the upshots of this is that you can create web services without needing a full-blown Java EE container. Young Yang shows how this works in practice.... more »

IBM recently announced that DataPower XI50 appliance now supports transformations developed using WebSphere Transformation Extender design studio. This is the same technology used in the Message Broker product. Additionally, support for WebSphere Registry and Repository has been added. From the announcement:... more »