Using the Web Service Connector 

The Web Service Connector, supplied by SAP with EP 6.0 on WebAS 6.40, is an implementation of the NetWeaver portal connector framework API. It provides the ability to interact with any Web services, regardless of source.

Technologies Used

·        WSDL (Web Service Definition Language)

·        SOAP(Simple Object Access Protocol)

·        SAAJ (SOAPwith Attahments for Java) – integrated with J2EE Engine

Connectivity

The only connection property that is mandatory for using the Web Service Connector is the WSDL URL for the specific Web service.

Authentication

The Web Service Connector supports basic authentication, SSO, and no authentication.

No Proxy Client Generation

Using the connector to consume Web services does not involve the use of any Web service client automatically created and deployed on the user machine. The need to create classes to

·        create SOAPrequests

·        sending them

·        receiving responses

·        parsing the responses

is made unnecessary because the Web Service Connector implements the portal connector framework API, and because it uses the JAAS standard. It can supply input and output variables on-the-fly without the need of a proxy client generation.

Supported Capabilities

The following are supported by the Web Service Connector:

·        All valid value combinations of the WSDL style and use parameters, which indicate how to translate a WSDL binding to a SOAP message.

¡        Style values are RPC and document.

¡        Use values are encoded and literal.

The binding possibilities are:

¡        RPC/encoded

¡        RPC/literal

¡        Document/encoded (Not in use: It is legal WSDL, but this style is not WS-I compliant.)

¡        Document/literal

·        Inclusion of other WSDLs in the WSDL of the target Web service (for example: <import location = <some_URL>>).

·        If the Web service WSDL is of the documentstyle, the Web Service Connector will support an associated schema, and also tags imported from other schemas (for example: <import namespace = <some_URL>>).

Constraints

The following are not supported by the Web Service Connector:

·        Ignores SOAPheaders, whether in request or response.

·        Fault messages are treated as CF RuntimeException with the fault message text as the Exception message

·        SOAPattachments are not supported whether in the request or response

·        If the Web service WSDL is of the style document/literal, schema elements must follow these rules to work with the connector framework:

¡        Does not use unsupported tags: <any>, <choice>, <union>, <group>, <attributeGroup>

¡        Schema must not contain recursive element definitions (an element may not include itself in its definition)

Data Handling

The data returned by means of the Web Service Connector can be rendered as viewable content in the NetWeaver portal either by means of Java code written by the content developer, or by automatic tools, such as the iView wizard. The automatic tools create Web Service iViews based on an iView template provided with the portal and uses iView wizard runtime code, which handles all function iViews for all connector framework connectors. (For more information about the system template, see the System Landscape section of the Portal Administration Guide.)

If content is to be provided by means of the automatic tools, it is important to be aware of how complex data types are handled by the Web Service Connector. For detailed information about this, see Data Type Handling by the Web Service Connector.