Release 10.1A: OpenEdge Development:
Web Services

Web Services Adapter for administration and run-time support

The WSA is the heart of OpenEdge support for Web services built in Progress 4GL. The WSA is a Java Servlet provided by Progress that runs as a Web application in the context of a Java Servlet Engine (JSE). To support Web service tools architecture for OpenEdge, the WSA serves the following three functions:

Supports the deployment environment for Web service-enabled AppServer applications and manages the deployed Web services.
Generates and manages WSDL files for Web services as they are deployed and makes these WSDL files available for download by potential Web service clients.
Directs incoming SOAP messages for client requests to specified Web services and converts the SOAP requests to AppServer requests as defined by the Web service WSAD file. It then converts AppServer responses to SOAP messages and returns these outgoing response messages from the specified Web services to the Web service clients that are waiting for them.

You can define multiple WSA server instances (Java servlets), each with different properties, and you can deploy multiple Web services to each WSA instance. Each WSA instance then supports the three WSA functions for its own set of Web services (see the information on WSA configuration, Web service deployment components, and client development components in OpenEdge Getting Started: Application and Integration Services ). For example, you might create separate WSA instances to deploy Web services that share the same SOAP format. This can be useful when you want to deploy the same Web service application to support multiple SOAP formats (see the information on SOAP in the Web services section of OpenEdge Getting Started: Application and Integration Services ).

For more information on WSA configuration and administration and on WSA deployment and Web service run-time support, see OpenEdge Application Server: Administration .