Glossary

• consumer, Web service  

  An application that executes a Web service operation by sending a SOAP message to a Web service provider.



• Direct to Web Services  

  A WebObjects development technology that can generate a Web service application from a model.



• editing context  

  Object that stores and manages a group of enterprise-object instances. An editing context, which is an instance of the EOEditingContext class, provides an in-memory view of data in a data store. Changes made to enterprise-object instances in an editing context are pushed to the data store by invoking a specific method. In adition, those changes can be undone, even after they have been committed to the corresponding data store.



• handler  

  A Java class used by Axis to process a SOAP message or a part of it in a specific way. For example, a handler can be implemented to perform authentication on the message's sender before allowing it to be processed by the receiver.



• handler chain  

  A group of handlers that can be viewed as a unit.



• hash  

  Number derived from a string such that any change to the string produces a different number.



• operation  

  A specific process or task that a Web service implements. Much like Java methods, a Web service operation can define an arbitrary number of parameters and return values. Operations are invoked by Web service consumers and executed by Web service providers.



• PKI (Public Key Infrastructure)  

  Authorization technology that uses a combination of private key cryptography and public key cryptography. It provides key management, data integrity, and data confidentiality.



• SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol)  

  XML-based, lightweight, platform-agnostic protocol used to exchange information in a decentralized, distributed environment. The protocol defines the XML elements that must be used to compose a message and how the data in a message should be processed.



• SOAP engine  

  Application or framework used by Web service providers and consumers to process SOAP messages.



• provider, Web service  

  An application that executes the logic that implements a Web service operation.



• SSL (Secure Sockets Layer)  

  Protocol used to provide encrypted communication on the Internet.



• UDDI (Universal Description, Discovery and Integration)  

  Searchable directory of Web services that Web service requestors can use to search for Web services and obtain their WSDL documents.



• Web service  

  A network-based repository of processes or tasks that can be used by applications to access data or execute operations across disparate platforms.



• WSDL (Web Services Description Language)  

  XML-based language used to describe Web services. Web service consumers can dynamically parse a WSDL document to determine the operations a Web service provides and how to execute them.



• WSS-Core (Web Services Security Core Specification)  

  Specification that defines a set of SOAP extensions that can be used to provide message-level data integrity and confidentiality.