Spring and WebService "architecture" Question

[etienno]

Hi,

I am not an expert in web service, but I have used Spring since a year for many j2ee project. I would like to know if I can use Spring for writing web services. I have 2 projects on the schedule that need Web Services/SOAP, and I need to decide how I will code the requirements.

For the first project I need to write a Web Service "Service" according to a WSDL and write a "Client" mock object for testing purpose. This application will run under IBM WAS 5.0.

For the second project, I only need to write a Web Service "Client" according to some Axis Client code. This project is already a Spring/Struts/Hibernate Web Project running on Jonas (a open source J2EE App Server).

I want to know if Spring will help me for the developement of Web Service.

For the first project, if it runs under WAS 5.0, does it means I should "code" everything with the Web Service wizard of WSAD, and Spring is not very usefull here?

And for the second project, I need to make a "Axis Client". I didn't found under the Spring tutorial (Spring remoting) any way to implement a Axis Client with Spring...

I am sorry if it sound confused, I need to read more on Web Service. But should I check the Spring way first or skype Spring for Web Service?

Thanks

Etienne
Paris.

[Paul Newport]

Hi,

I am not an expert in web service, but I have used Spring since a year for many j2ee project. I would like to know if I can use Spring for writing web services. I have 2 projects on the schedule that need Web Services/SOAP, and I need to decide how I will code the requirements.

Have you got anywhere with this ? When you use RAD/WSAD to generate a web service, it obviously creates some Spring unaware proxy code, which I guesss woulld need to be modified.

[Arjen Poutsma]

I am not an expert in web service, but I have used Spring since a year for many j2ee project. I would like to know if I can use Spring for writing web services. I have 2 projects on the schedule that need Web Services/SOAP, and I need to decide how I will code the requirements.

For the first project I need to write a Web Service "Service" according to a WSDL and write a "Client" mock object for testing purpose. This application will run under IBM WAS 5.0.

For the second project, I only need to write a Web Service "Client" according to some Axis Client code. This project is already a Spring/Struts/Hibernate Web Project running on Jonas (a open source J2EE App Server).

I want to know if Spring will help me for the developement of Web Service.

For the first project, if it runs under WAS 5.0, does it means I should "code" everything with the Web Service wizard of WSAD, and Spring is not very usefull here?

And for the second project, I need to make a "Axis Client". I didn't found under the Spring tutorial (Spring remoting) any way to implement a Axis Client with Spring...

Well, if you are looking for good integration with Spring, you basically have two choices:

XFire makes it really easy to expose existing Spring beans via SOAP. You could generate Java classes which directly implement the WSDL and the Schema for your Service and your Client. This should get you up to speed pretty fast.

Spring-WS takes a different approach, it tries to provide a MVC-like layer for handling the XML messages. In general, Spring-WS focusses on the XML that is sent accross the wire, because I think that the XML and your contracts is most important. Unfortunately, there is no client support yet.

Hope that gets you on the way,

[lumpynose]

Arjen, your links to xfire and spring-ws are mangled and don't work.

[Arjen Poutsma]

Oops. Fixed. Thanks for spotting that!