SOA-J

A Framework for WSDL-Centric Web Services Development with Java

The Service Oriented Architecture for Java (SOA-J) Application Framework is an open source project described in Chapter 11 of the book. SOA-J is a Web Services publishing framework that is WSDL-centric. It enables you to construct WSDL defined services from Java POJOs and EJBs. The Web Services published by SOA-J can be used as components within a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). In this manner, SOA-J can be used to map existing Java applications into an SOA framework.

The goal of SOA-J is to leverage the Java EE standards to create a framework that facilitates WSDL-centric construction of Web Services. Using SOA-J, you create a Web service by building its WSDL and annotating that WSDL document with references to the Java elements that implement it. Unlike with the JWS “Start from WSDL” development mode, there is no need to compile the WSDL and work with machine-generated classes.1 Instead, you set up a configuration file, having the same structure as your target WSDL but with additional information about the Java implementation, and the SOA-J framework publishes the WSDL and maps SOAP requests to the implementation at runtime.

Such a WSDL-centric approach is perfect for situations where you need to create Web services that integrate into a standard corporate or eBusiness framework (i.e., where there are standard schemas and message descriptions).

Downloading SOA-J

Contributing to SOA-J

Bug Reports, Patches, Feature Requests