Why Web Services Failed at SOA (and Why REST May Fail Too!)

Why Web Services Failed at SOA (and Why REST May Fail Too!)
— First, let us review what is the concept behind services, with particular mention of the web services themselves.
A service is a business functionality exposed by a simple interface. Note that it is not an object, nor a method, nor a module, not a procedure. It is pure business functionality.
Services are consumed, not called, nor executed nor invoked. We define the service consumption as the interaction between agents, a client and a provider, which will communicate using a messaging system, where the data unit is a document. Consumption may be local or remote (meaning a service may not require remote communication).
A service may live in the web, where they are modeled as resources, identified by a URI. If not living in web, as suitable endpoint implementation should be provided.

SoapUI for Web Service Testing

SoapUI for Web Service Testing
— A popular tool for web service testing is SoapUI. The following blog post describes how to use it for testing a simple web service, as well as setting up a series of tests and even load/stress testing. Without a doubt similar documentation is available on the SoapUI website; my post gives my spin on the product that maybe useful to others.

The Future of SOA

The Future of SOA
— As consumers we are accustomed to the end-user experience of the Internet. With HTTP and XML, you don’t need to have a specific application on your computer to make use of external data – you can just open a browser window and do a search or visit a particular Web site to find the information you need.