Tutorials : Digging deeper into Apache Axis :

Digging deeper into Apache Axis

Introduction

This article is a follow-up to my previous article "Using Apache Axis version 1 to build Web Services". A quick recap: Axis is an Open Source implementation of the SOAP protocol used for building Web Services. In the first article we saw how to install Axis, how to set up various utility bat-files, and how to code, deploy and test the server side code for a simple application used for maintaining a library of DVDs. A Swing client was then coded giving us an application architecture like this:

Figure 1: A Swing client using Axis

The specs for the Swing client were taken from two other articles, "Struts meets Swing (1)" and "Struts meets Swing (2)", where a client was built to interface with a Struts servlet application. Finally in the article we saw how to display the SOAP traffic on the HTTP connection. For this, we used the tcpmon Axis utility.

In this article we’ll investigate some other useful features in Axis:

session management
the SOAPMonitor
automatic generating of client code using the WSDL2Java tool

Then we’ll look into the data type support Axis gives you, and finally we’ll modify the old Struts servlet application so it uses the same web service as the Swing client. The result is therefore this double-client architecture:

Figure 2: Two clients using Axis

The advantage of this architecture is that it is open to other Java clients that can talk SOAP on HTTP.

Keld is currently working as a web architect for one of the largest IT companies in Denmark. He battled with the mainframes during the 70's when they were the size of a gymnasium and had the power of your PalmPilot. He also struggled with CASE-tools in the 90s and now explores the cutting edge technology of the Web. While not busy at his computer he likes to vacation on the Greek islands.

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