Web Services

Web Services is a form of online data exchange. Data in the form of XML is obtained via http for use by an application, unlike HTML which is destined to be displayed to a user. Over the last three years, Gregory Consulting has been developing code that uses the web services model to obtain data over http as XML. The XML data set is then a resource of the system and is used in various ways. One system uses the XML to selectively edit database records; another translates this data and serves it out on a web page; another creates new database records based on it.

An example of one of these projects is a web site we developed for Delcan and the Ontario Ministry of Transportation to demonstrate the principles of traffic web site design and data exchange. Various pages use this web services model. On one traffic information page, plain text information that is extracted from the system that controls the message signs along the roadways is obtained via http. Server-side code converts the data from a plain text format to XML. The XML is then processed by a java applet to display the traffic conditions in map format on the data exchange site. Elsewhere on the site, construction information is obtained as XML then transformed using one of two XSLT files to either HTML or WML based on the type of browser making the request; HTML for PC’s or WML for wireless devices, allowing users to get construction information from their palms or cell phones. To view this page in a cell phone format, surf to http://wapsilon.com and enter the URL http://www.travelerinformation.com/demo/Oregon/Construction/default.asp then choose the type of cell phone you wish to view in. We also created an interactive page that allows the user to choose a route on a road map. This choice is translated to XML that is compared to XML obtained through the web service model. The result is a customized report of traffic incidents, accidents or construction, along the user’s route.

Now things are getting really exciting in the world of Web Services. Visual Studio.NET is an amazing productivity tool for creating web services, along with companion WSDL files that are the key to interoperability between web services created with different tools and running on completely different platforms. As standards for security and other auxiliary concerns continue to solidify, these are great times to be web services programmers. If you have an application that needs to process information gathered over http, ask us to talk with you about how to fit web services into the work you're doing now.  

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