I have an Intranet Web based application, Near about 30-40 users are using at a time to enters data through Web Pages. Application ( VB-COM ) inserts data into SQL SERVER as well as DB2, and also sends messages to DB2. Now we are going to use Web Mehods to send messages to DB2 and other packages or Applications.
1 ). I want to know How web service is helpful in this kind of small scale intranet application?
2 ). Do I really need this?
3 ). What are the advantage and disadvantages of using it in my application?
I would really appreciate anyone of you could reply me.
If you are going to insert a lot of data, it would be better if you use stored procedures and make a call to the SP from webMethods
whether you need webMethods or not is to be decided after comparing the performance statistics
The advantages of using webMethods is that there will be a lot of clarity as far as transaction management is concerned. You will be able to follow each transaction very closely and can improve error handling and much more
Disadvantage would be that you will be adding another layer to your application.
You should wait for comments from experts here.
Thanks and good luck!
Thanks VR for your reply. Actually we are going to use webMethods anyway but I was asking about use of Web Services that comes with webMethods.
We can still accomplish our tasks of messaging with webMethods but few people were arguing that web services is very cool and we should use that …bla…bla…so I wanted to know that, Is webservice really helpful for the Intranet application I mentioned earlier?
So if you have any idea about use of web service with webMethods please reply .
The primary benefit of web services in any environment is that it provides a standardized mechanism for accessing services. Whether an RPC-like technique vs. a document-oriented technique for service interaction is of benefit to your app depends on what the app is doing.
Using SOAP adds some overhead (enveloping, de-enveloping, more bytes on the wire). Using SOAP-RPC tends to couple the applications that are communicating, a bit more so than using document-oriented exchanges.
It wouldn’t be a bad thing to use SOAP for your app but the benefit is primarily in the ability of other apps to connect to your app in a standardized way. A reasonable rule of thumb is to use SOAP interfaces for the public services you expose to other apps and don’t use SOAP for internal communication within the app.
I agree with Rob. Unless you need to expose the abilty to enter this data to business partners or the public as some type of API, I don’t see an application for web services here.
The good news is that if you use webMethods Integration Server 4.6 SP2 or later to build the service that inserts data into DB2 and MS SQL Server, that service is, by default, available as a web service simply by posting the correct SOAP message to a specific URL on your IS server.