Web service concepts

This section gives a short description of web services and the related WSDL and SOAP web standards, and how the Connector for Web Services adheres to these standards.

Web Service

A web service is a server application that runs somewhere on the Internet or an intranet and that directly interacts with a client application (a web client) connected to this network. The service is based on various Web standards, such as XML, SOAP, WSDL, and HTTP.

The Connector for Web Services provides web services to access BDE and BOI business interfaces that are implemented on Infor LN or Baan application servers. Through these services, a web client can invoke the public methods of a specific BDE business interface. Each web service corresponds with a single BDE implementation. The BDE business interface and the associated web service have the same name. To access the web services, open this URL ("SOAP address"):

http://<web server host>/c4ws/services/<BDE name>/< Infor LN or Baan server name>

The Infor LN or Baan server name in the previous URL represents the identifier of the Infor LN or Baan server you specified in the configuration of the connection between the connector and this server; see the ERP Server field on the connector's Add/Modify an ERP Server page.

XML

Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language to describe data. All documents that web services use for exchanging and verifying data are XML-based.

SOAP

SOAP is an XML-based protocol to exchange information across the internet.

You use SOAP for remote procedure calls (RPC) on the web service that is implemented by the Connector for Web Services.

WSDL

Web Service Definition Language is an XML vocabulary to define web services. A WDSL file describes the complex data types of the web service and the methods to manipulate their values. You use WSDL to implement a web service for adding, retrieving, modifying, and removing specific business data through method calls.

In the context of the Connector for Web Services, the WSDL file describes the methods and the method arguments to invoke BDE or BOI methods. This information is used to build request SOAP messages. The required information includes:

  • The business object (BDE or BOI)
  • The method with the required input arguments
  • The server itself

HTTP

The HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is the protocol used by the World Wide Web that defines how messages are formatted and transmitted, and what actions must be taken in response to various commands. If, for example, you submit a URL address in your web browser, HTTP is used to retrieve the corresponding website.

To understand and use the Connector for Web Services, knowledge about WSDL and SOAP standards is required.