Proceedings

Track: Large-Scale Architectures, Core Technologies

Audience Level: Technical view

Time: Tuesday, November 15 16:00

Keywords: Web Services, Session, WS-Context, WS-Addressing

Abstract:

This paper describes the session concept as it relates to middleware systems in general and Web services in particular. Common applications of the session concept are found in distributed object systems, the Web, and messaging middleware systems. The purpose of a session is to allow multiple individual Web Services to enter a relationship by sharing certain common attributes as an externally modeled entity. For example, multiple Web Services executing within the scope of a single authorized/secure session. In the context of Web services, explicit building blocks for session-oriented protocols and services have been proposed in two specifications, WS-Addressing and WS-Context. The distinguishing characteristic of these two proposals is the degree of coupling they introduce between session participants. In this paper we shall compare and contrast the underlying models these specifications present, as they relate to the session concept in Web services. The aim is to illustrate the advantages and disadvantages of both approaches and summarize best-practices and techniques for supporting a scalable Web services architecture. Note, although this paper is not purely research oriented, it does make an important contribution in the area of software practices and experiences for current and future researchers. The authors believe that it is important to ensure that the Web services architecture scales as well as the World Wide Web and as we shall see, the session concept and how it is provided play an integral role in that arena.

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