The Web services tools support a set of Web services standards that result in interoperable and reliable Web service applications:
You can send messages asynchronously, so that your messages can communicate reliably even if one of the parties is temporarily offline, busy, or not available. You can send messages securely and rest assured that your messages are not vulnerable to attack. You can be confident that your communication is reliable and reaches its destination and is compatible with other vendors.
JAX-WS Web services can be deployed to WebSphere Application Server v7.0. Additionally you can install, start and test a Web service or Web service client targeted to a server stub if you specify an existing server in the Web Service wizard. This existing server could be a remote server or a server that is compatible with that stub server runtime.
JAX-WS makes physical WSDL documents optional in deployed clients. Although this simplifies the deployment of a Web service client, it also introduces some potential run time issues. Portable clients minimize run time issues that could result from moving your client code from one system to another.
Bottom-up Web services can be created from a POJO (Plain Old Java Object) residing in a Java project.
You can also Web service enable a Java bean by using Quickfixes. Add an @WebService annotation to a Java bean in a Java project and use the provided quickfix to convert the project into a Web service enabled project, for example a dynamic Web project or an EJB project when @Stateless is also present.
The Web service tools support the capabilities of IBM® WebSphere® Application Server V6.1 Feature Pack for Web services and WebSphere Application Server v7.0 to facilitate sending Web services messages asynchronously, reliably, and securely, permitting interoperability with other vendors and supporting the Java API for XML Web Services (JAX-WS) 2.1 programming model. Simplified management using Web service profiles makes it easy to configure and reuse configurations, so that you can introduce new Web service profiles seamlessly in the future. These configurations are captured in a grouping called policy sets, in which you select and associate different qualities of service with an application. Policy sets can be imported and exported by using the Import and Export wizards.
You can configure policy sets to allow only those capabilities within a given WS-Interoperability (WS-I) profile, thereby limiting configurable portions to those that work across vendors. WS-I is an open industry organization chartered to promote Web service interoperability across platforms, operating systems, and programming languages. Validation and conformance can be set for WS-I BP 1.2 and 2.0, as well as BSP 1.0. WS-I and quality of service preferences can now be found in a single Service Policies preferences page. The workspace Service Policies setting can also be overridden on the project level by using the project properties page.
The Web service tools include pre-configured bindings that you can use to test Qualities of service. They can be imported by using the Import wizard.
Web services providers can share information about policy sets used in a Web service with clients. Web services providers can specify if the information is available in the WSDL or if clients need to use WS-Metadata Exchange to get the information. Clients can be configured to use any policy sets that are available from a provider, or they can choose to add more capabilities by adding client specific Qualities of service.
For Web services deployed to WebSphere Application Server v7.0, the Kerberos security token can be used. For JAX-RPC Web services it can be configured through the Web service security wizards, and for JAX-WS Web services it is part of the Web Services Security policy type.
The previous JAX-WS and JSR-109 nodes in the Enterprise Explorer have been consolidated into the Services view which will allow you to quickly find and work with all the available services in a workspace. Similar information on Services is available under each of the projects in the Enterprise Explorer.
The workbench supports automatic completion of Web service annotations even when the classes are not on the system classpath. You can insert the Web service annotations @WebService and @WebMethod, in the Java editor, as a template with appropriate values.
Web service annotations support the use of quick fixes. When a JAX-WS annotation is unresolved, quick fixes can help you to enable JAX-WS project support.
You can use the JAXB related tools to automatically refactor the generated Java code in projects for a set of complex and interdependent XSD files. Refactoring occurs as a part of the generation process. You can also group the generated code into the projects that you select.
Client side policy set bindings support validation. WSDL validation can now track IBM® WebSphere® Application Server requirements. For example WSDL validation can warn you of relative namespaces or unusual URI patterns and unsupported wire formats based on IBM WebSphere Application Server requirements.
When creating Web services and clients by using Ant tasks, the scripts are now located in a standard location and can be easily run without copying the scripts or modifying them based on workspace location and product install directories. You can also select the Web services runtime and Web service type when importing Ant files into the workspace. This enables yo to use an Ant file template best matched with the runtime and scenario you want to run.
You can now generate Web services sample JSP files by using a stub server. Also, when you use the context menu to generate sample JSP files, you can select the server type and server instance on which to run the sample JSP files.