Exercise 16 - Systems Integration

1. Choose ONE of the four ways to manage and develop integrated systems as listed below; XML and Webservices as the glue; Business Process Analysis; Federated databases; Portal and service-orientated architectures

I have chosen 'XML and Webservices as the glue'.

2. Summarise your understanding and describe its relevance (250 words max)

3. Edit TWO similar versions (include bibliography) of that summary to CSU Interact:
a. post version A as a wiki page contribution;
b. add version B as a final entry to close your developer’s blog.

According to the W3C a Web service is a software system designed to support interoperable machine-to-machine interaction over a network (Spiritus-Temporis.com, 2005). Web services are typically application programming interfaces (API) or Web APIs that are accessed via Hypertext Transfer Protocol and executed on a remote system hosting the requested services (Wikipedia, 2010). Webservices themselves bring together a standardised way for isolated applications, legacy systems, and dispersed organisations to allow connectivity over a standard protocol with XML so that these systems can interact real-time. Some of the benefits that can be gained are:

• Being able to connect different types of applications so that they can share data
• Standardised protocol which allows the communication which is HTTP
• Being able to create loosely coupled applications
• Reliable and standard way of sending data between applications and between different organisations
• Ease of integration
  

For e-Commerce applications webservices and XML can be used as the glue to being able to bring together many different organisations and systems together so that they can communicate and share data between them even when being run on disparate platforms, or being geographically restricted.

As a developer, and working at a financial organisation I see webservices being used in applications to connect to vendors, but also internally for the organisation to expose generic services in which all applications internally can use. This brings about consolidation of business logic, and code and helps to reduce development time and cost to the organisation.

I believe web services are an integral part of most if not all businesses today on the internet, and will continue to grow now and into the future.