The Web Services Adapter (WSA) provides a communications and transformation gateway between industry Web service clients and AppServer application services. Using the WSA, you can deploy a Web service (OpenEdge Web service) developed from an existing AppServer application service and make it available to Web service clients using Web Service Description Language (WSDL). Like the AIA, the WSA relies on the Unified Broker framework for configuration and administration.
Also like the AIA, the WSA runs as a Java servlet in most any Java container, which provides the Internet access that Web service clients require. However, in addition to the HTTP and HTTPS communications provided by the Java container/Web server, the WSA understands the Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) used to exchange service messages between Web service clients and the Web services that it manages. Thus, the WSA translates between service requests from Web service clients and application service responses from the AppServer, which it returns as Web service responses to the clients.
OpenEdge Web services rely on Open Client technology to develop the client interface required by Web service clients. For information on how to build OpenEdge Web services and access them from Web service clients, see OpenEdge Development: Web Services and OpenEdge Development: Open Client Introduction and Programming.
For more information on managing the WSA, including information on how to deploy and manage OpenEdge Web services, see Part 3, "Web Services Adapter Administration." The chapters in Part III cover all aspects of Web service deployment, run-time management, and security, as well as the management of the WSA itself.
