Build Web Services

Altova MapForce® 2012 provides powerful capabilities for building Web services based on existing WSDL 1.1/2.0 files and XML, database, flat file, EDI, Excel 2007+, and/or XBRL data sources.

Web services are software components that use XML-based messages to exchange data between applications. Web services based on open standards and are hardware, programming language, and operating system independent. Because of this inherent interoperability, Web services are increasingly relied on in today’s enterprise and service-oriented architectures (SOA) as powerful tools for exchanging information between disparate systems over internal and external corporate networks as well as over the Internet.

Despite the advantages that Web services promise for simplifying data communication, building them can be a complicated and time consuming process and can represent a significant learning curve for users who are inexperienced with WSDL and SOAP technologies.

MapForce takes the complexity out of Web services implementation by allowing you to build Web services visually using a highly intuitive graphical design interface. You simply map between operations in WSDL transactions by dragging connecting lines between data source and WSDL components. Supported data sources include XML files, relational databases, flat files, EDI messages, Excel 2007+, and XBRL. Once you’ve defined mappings for all of the transactions in your WSDL file, MapForce autogenerates the Java or C# code required to implement the Web service on a server.

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Building Web Services Visually

MapForce supports visual, drag and drop WSDL mapping based on WSDL 1.1 or 2.0. WSDL (Web Services Description Language) is an XML-based language used to describe and locate Web services. WSDL works hand-in-hand with SOAP, where WSDL defines a Web service and the functionality it provides, and SOAP is the transport protocol used by the client application to actually call the functions listed in the WSDL description. A WSDL file is made up of multiple transactions, each of which includes a SOAP request schema and a SOAP response schema.

MapForce support for the SOAP standard extends to its current release, version 1.2.

Once a WSDL is created, implementing the Web service it describes involves writing the code to access the data required for each transaction. MapForce automates this process by allowing you to connect data sources and operations visually, autogenerating the required Java or C# program code required to implement the service on a server.

Building a Web service in MapForce involves the following simple steps:

	1.		Create a Web services project by specifying an existing WSDL 1.1 or 2.0 file.

	2.		Select a transaction within the WSDL. MapForce automatically displays the proper structures based on the version of the WSDL document (1.1 or 2.0) that you have loaded in the mapping project.

	3.		Insert other data sources to include in your Web services mapping (e.g., a database, an XML Schema, etc.).

	4.		Create your mapping by dragging connecting lines from elements in your data sources to the corresponding targets in the response schema. You can also insert data processing functions to filter or perform conversions on the data.

Building Web services in MapForce

View a Flash demo of building Web services graphically in MapForce now

	5.		Repeat the process to create mappings for all required transactions.

	6.		Use MapForce to generate Java or C# code for individual transactions or for the entire WSDL project to implement your Web service server-side.

Since each mapping is only a single transaction, the number of mappings required for a given Web services implementation can be large. MapForce allows you to comprehensively organize these mappings in a project view and then generate code to implement your Web service based on the entire project.

MapForce project view

Automating Web Services Development

In addition to greatly simplifying Web services development, autogeneration of program code based on visual design ensures that code is written consistently across an entire project, since it’s produced according to industry standards and globally defined parameters and options, rather than having multiple engineers manually writing the code. This high degree of software code consistency helps reduce bugs while improving overall readability and reusability.

Learn more in the Automate Data Integration section.

Accessing Data Sources in Web Services

MapForce includes award-winning data integration capabilities that allow you to quickly create sophisticated Web services applications that utilize data from multiple disparate systems. Using MapForce, you can map data to and from Web services transactions and connect any of today’s most prevalent data formats: XML, databases, flat files, EDI messages, Excel 2007+, and/or XBRL. A rich library of data processing functions allows you to filter and process data before returning it as a Web services response.

Learn more in the Data Processing Functions section.

Complete Web Services Development

For building Web services, MapForce supports any standard WSDL 1.1 or 2.0 implementation, including WSDL files created in Altova XMLSpy®. Developing WSDL files in XMLSpy is also a visual process, so, using XMLSpy and MapForce together, you can create Web services from start to finish in a visual manner. This accelerates Web services development and reduces the occurrence of errors that may be introduced by manual coding.

XMLSpy helps you write and validate WSDL 1.1 or 2.0 documents quickly and easily. Its graphical WSDL editor displays the WSDL file structure as well as the WSDL elements grouped by operations, portTypes/interfaces, bindings, and services. You can manipulate the file by dragging and dropping elements, and context-sensitive windows and entry helpers provide intelligent editing options. XMLSpy also supports converting/migrating between WSDL 1.1 and 2.0.

By creating a WSDL file in XMLSpy, then building the corresponding Web service and generating program code in MapForce, you can build a complete Web service visually – without having to write a single line of code. All that remains is to compile the code generated by MapForce and deploy it on a server.

XMLSpy and MapForce are both part of the Altova MissionKit, which bundles multiple Altova tools at a special price.

See how easy visual Web services development can be with MapForce® 2012. Download a free 30-day trial of MapForce. Or, for complete Web services development, download a free trial of the Altova® MissionKit® 2012.

Check out the new MapForce flash demo!