In the world of e-business, the issue of standards becomes one of alphabet soup. Web services, the applications standards empowering communication over the Internet, are spawning their own special acronyms, and if you don’t know what they mean, as well as how they will affect your bottom line, you’ll get left by the roadside no matter what color that stoplight is on.

Knowledge Management in the Works

The defining factor in e-business is having the ability to incorporate new technology quickly and effectively to the benefit not only of your own company, but also of your customers, vendors, and suppliers. Defining this concept isn’t always easy. Jason Bloomberg, senior analyst at IT market intelligence firm, ZapThink (www.zapthink.com), in KM World magazine, September 2004 puts it this way: “Organizations today have integrated e-business into core business operations—from human resources and account to operations and sales. Web-based e-business focuses on e-commerce, customer relationship management and others.”

The phrase “and others” is what encompasses the Web services model as it drives interaction across the Internet. In a world becoming increasingly complex, crowded with tongue-tied acronyms and article after article on integrated services, it’s easy to fall into the trap of believing that knowledge management is for ”the other guy.” All you need to know is how your product works and how it’s going to save time and money for your prospects.

The truth is a bit stickier. Advice posted in the pages of KM World is not advice to be ignored. One need only do a short search on any search engine to uncover the millions of places knowledge management is mentioned in connection with e-business. It’s not only one of the most current buzz phrases in the IT world, it’s a process, a concept, a course of study that is spilling beyond the B2B (business to business) into the B2C (business to consumer) sector. Stop and contemplate that thought. Your clients may be in the B2B world, but their clients are most likely in the B2C world. Shouldn’t you employ knowledge management to sell to them?

It helps to have a clear understanding of the process. Knowledge management as a tool is only as good as your dedication to learning about it. When looking at the portion of knowledge management wrapped around Web services, the standards being set as the foundation for all future interaction over the Internet, becoming familiar with the components and how they work becomes an essential part of your job.

Web services aren’t new, of course, but over the last few years the components have silently graduated from middle school functionality to high school functionality, and it won’t be long before they move beyond college level functionality. Once they reach that milestone, it will be too late for resellers to scramble or cram for the exam.
The exam will be over, and make-up classes will not be offered.

A Foundation to Build On

Web services are a product of the Internet, plain and simple. The ubiquitous nature of the Internet, and the increasing need for all business to pass over its platform, are dictating the necessity for software components that operate invisibly, in the background, without human interaction per se. Yes, business managed to operate on a global basis throughout the 19th and 20th centuries without broadband connections, specialty software and hardware, or bi-lingual employees, but those days are fading faster than old Polaroids. Today, the multifaceted nature of the Internet demands all of these things, and because of that Web services were born. Described as “a stack of emerging standards that describe a service-oriented, component-based application architecture” by PerfectXML (www.perfectxml.com/Xanalysis/TSG/WebServices.asp), this technology was the next big thing only a few years ago.

PlanetLab (www.planet-lab.org), developed by Intel and Hewlett Packard, takes the concept up a notch, explaining, “It’s about time to upgrade the Internet with new capabilities that will help future-proof the ubiquitous network.” Those words from Pat Gelsinger, CTO of Intel, are echoed on the PlanetLab Web site where the tagline describes the processes being developed as “planetary scale services.” Designed to be embedded on top of the existing Internet, these services include things such as “intelligent network mapping, content distribution to optimize distribution of information, and support for more efficient Webcasting.”

The Nitty-Gritty Takes Over

No matter who speaks or writes or collaborates on the means to connect businesses successfully over the Internet, the word “services” always creeps into the conversation. B2B or B2C, service is the bottom line. Not your commission check, not the functionality of the server or hardware you sell, not the power of the chip in your machine—service. That’s what clients want, and that’s what standards such as Web services supply.
The journey begins with learning and understanding what Web services are. It ends with the customer and his or her use of your technology, one that may be delivered on a Web services platform.

Web services bring with them certain unalienable needs. The first is to communicate effectively. The second is to communicate efficiently. The third is to marry the first two and achieve verbal or written expressions that convey the correct meaning to the correct person.

Following PerfectXML’s model of Web services, one learns that, at their core, they are “reusable software components.” This means reusable by individuals and/or companies needing to communicate via a platform that may or may not recognize normal software components. It’s in their ability to be object-oriented components that give them power. As object-oriented components, Web services can be assembled and expanded according to need.

PerfectXML says they are also software components that are “loosely coupled,” dispensing with the software developer’s need to have control over both ends of the connection. Instead, using using loosely coupled components lends flexibility to the platform. Because Web services also “semantically encapsulate discrete functionality,” it’s acceptable to describe them as applets, each one performing a single task successfully. In simple terms, rather than muck up the works with one particular set of computer code that refuses to talk nicely to other sets of computer code, Web services get friendly and share definitions, effectively talking nicely to each other.

An important part of understanding Web services is to know that they are NOT graphical user interfaces. There is no point and click action. Because Web services actually exchange data with each other, unlike the usual Internet interfaces we’re used to, such as HTML and other Web design code—both of which require human interaction—Web services go about their business surreptitiously riding on the back of protocols like HTTP Hypertext Transfer Protocol, the action of moving data from one computer to another. This is a vital part of understanding Web services because it’s this functionality that allows the code to “leverage existing infrastructure” and “comply with current corporate firewall policies.”.

It’s All About Meta

Meta refers to language in the computer sense. Metadata is actually language about language. XML, the foundation of Web services, refers to “extensible” markup language as opposed to HTML, or Hypertext Markup Language.

XML is the set of guidelines underlying the core of Web services, according to the World Wide Web consortium, W3C, which is the primary organization behind the push to adopt Web standards. XML describes structured data in plain text. Until the development of XML, the Web operated on proprietary standards and vocabularies, making it difficult to actually exchange data from company to company across the Internet. If company #1 did not use the same software programs as company #2, the interchange of information was received as gobbledygook. Enter XML and the development of SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol), and suddenly the Web got friendlier!

This was and is program-to-program communication, working effectively and efficiently, in terms both the sender and receiver understand. Unfortunately, it also came with a growing list of acronyms that require practice, not only in the learning but also in the understanding. When one comprehends these as just more protocols, much the same way HTTP and FTP are protocols, Web services become more palatable. In time, they will trip off the tongue like blonde jokes or tax jokes or political jokes—easily understood because they reflect a part of society everyone understands.

Here they are:
UDDI: Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration. This Web-based directory offers online businesses a place to list themselves, uncover partners or needed vendors, and exchange significant information at will. According to the UDDI Web site (www.uddi.org), “UDDI is the building block that will enable businesses to quickly, easily and dynamically find and transact business with one another using their preferred applications.” Note the “preferred applications” description.

WSDL: Web Services Description Language. This XML formatted computer language describes a particular Web service’s capabilities using end points for exchanging messages. WSDL is the computer language supporting UDDI. It connects companies listed in the UDDI directory.

WSFL: Web Services Flow Language. This is the new kid on the block. It needs some work. A WSFL team, sponsored by IBM, is working on a way to define a framework that users of Web services can implement to describe “the business logic” (see explanation below) required to assemble various services into an end-to-end business process, according to PerfectXML.

We can’t leave out the mobile interaction of Web services. At the WebServices.org site (www.webservices.org), information on WS-Reliability speaks to a specification outlining Web services messaging. SOAP over HTTP is just insufficient when used with an application-level messaging protocol, which needs to guarantee some measure of reliability and security. The specifications for WS-Reliability not only makes sure messages are delivered but also that any duplicate messages between the sender and receiver are eliminated.

Business logic is the platform functionality of Web services. Because most human beings prefer to justify purchases and business operations logically, so it is with Web services, also. The logic required to understand how specific tasks perform during data exchanges led someone somewhere to coin an explanation which became: business logic.

The business logic part of Web services comes from the three-tier software architecture model—one in which the user interface, the functional process logic and the data storage and data access, are developed and maintained as independent modules. In an almost human-like manner, Web services enable business operations to run seamlessly across the Internet and into the thousands of offices on a global basis.

More than Semantics

As a general rule, it’s safe to consider Web services part of the Semantic Web. The Semantic Web Group (www.w3.org/TR/owl-features), headed by Tim Berners-Lee of the W3C, is the power behind the goal to develop “a web of data that can be processed directly or indirectly by machines.” As you read this, the Semantic Web is working on RDF, Resource Description Framework, designed to allow developers to build “search engines that rely on metadata which will ultimately allow Internet users to share Web site information more readily.” RDF relies on XML as an interchange syntax, creating an ontology system for the exchange of information on the Web.

Basically, the Semantic Web Group is teaching computers several new languages—languages resellers need to familiarize themselves with if they plan to compete in a services architecture that relies on technology for its communication vehicle.

We come full circle now. In the scenario above, standards exist to address client needs first. Client needs are all about services. Services are what servers are all about.