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英文原文： Predicting the Future of Web Services Learn how four business drivers could shape the evolution of Web services in the enterprise. by Robert Wegener Tech Ed 2003 Issue Although it's difficult to forecast what's in store for Web services when they're still being defined, it's impossible to ignore business drivers that will affect the technology's future. In this article, I'll discuss how these drivers come into play given the assumption that the necessary standards are in place and the major players support them (see Figure 1). The major business drivers include increased market share; offloading non-core business functionality; quick and easy business process integration and adaptability; and centralized, realtime availability of services regardless of platform. Web services are the business-enabling tool to extend the enterprise both inside and outside the firewall, and, as I'll explain, these drivers have the potential to make this happen. Increased market share is the biggest driver outside the firewall. The Web has enabled businesses to reach clients all over the world. By placing promotional links on other Web sites, businesses can funnel buyers to their sites. However, this technology has buyers jumping from site to site, which increases the likelihood they'll lose interest and not make a purchase. Businesses have tried to solve this issue by adding more content to their sites. But more isn't always better and, in this case, it tends to dilute a company's core offerings. Figure 1 Stack It Up Web services hold the greatest promise of providing businesses with the capability to offer the appearance of a one-stop shop. A business can use other vendors' Web services on its Web site to provide access to content, and the user never leaves its site. For example, by incorporating Amazon's Web services, an independent bookseller can provide access to the full inventory of books Amazon maintains. Instead of sending the user to Amazon's site for a specific title, the title appears to be available within the bookseller's site, transparently to the user. The user experience is enhanced and both the reseller and Amazon share in the additional sale. The ability to provide services transparently to the end user enhances the overall shopping experience, allows smaller sites to provide more services at a lower cost, and lets the major industry players provide services to smaller firms at a competitive price. Get Down to Basics As companies return to a back-to-basics approach and shed operations that do little to enhance the bottom line, they're looking to offload non-core business functions to third parties who can do it better, faster, and cheaper. Although many company systems have become so tightly coupled to the core business process that they can't be removed without a major disruption to the business, other operations, such as external interfaces, are great candidates for outsourcing. By looking at the areas of a business that carry little risk (for example, customer call centers) and/or have loosely-coupled functions (for example, company payroll and benefit administration), companies can save billions of dollars. As companies focus on cost-saving measures and leverage outside systems, they open up tightly integrated enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM) systems and supply chain applications. Web services will drive this type of restructuring forward. Predicting the Future of Web Services (Continued) SAP's MySAP.com e-business platform is a prime example. The MySAP.com platform is based on a service-oriented architecture (SOA), which enables enterprise-scale Web services use. The platform exposes SAP's business-process solutions through Web services, which allows the gateway to extend business processes and services beyond business boundaries. Opening these previously closed systems not only eases internal integration issues, but it also promotes external collaboration and enables organizations to offload non-core business functions that target specific areas of the business, such as order fulfillment and inventory control. This model provides the basic template for the complete virtual corporation. You can view each business function as a component in a larger context, supported through loosely coupled business objects. This allows for rapid changes in supplier relationships, product/market alignment, and pricing structures. The virtual corporation can purchase functionality on the open market, regardless of borders and high-cost barriers to entry. The platform will also provide a new business model for companies that want to target specific areas of the business. These new businesses might be sole providers of a service or act as brokers. Web services take on an intricate part of every business function. For this to work, Web services will rely on Business Process Management (BPM) tools that can orchestrate the process flows and coordinate the execution of a collection of Web services within the context of a business transaction. Because orchestration and coordination are integral to most enterprise application integration (EAI) middleware, it's natural for the EAI middleware vendors to extend their offerings to embrace Web services. The combination of solid BPM tools and solid Web services standards and frameworks will complete the puzzle necessary to offload non-core business functionality. Provide Business Process Integration With the advent of a SOA, many middleware providers include Web services as part of their product offerings. Companies such as Vitria expose their integration solutions as Web services to reduce the complexity of integrating internal applications and to extend these services to partners and industries external to the business (see Resources). Exposing these processes as Web services eliminates the labor-intensive and costly use of proprietary interfaces. In addition, Web services provide the foundation for BPM necessary to change business processes quickly and easily to meet the evolving needs of the market, partners, and other applications. It's important to note that Web services—with future layers of orchestration, collaboration, and workflow standards—will be only a part of a larger picture of distributed services. You can expect today's middleware and application development tool vendors to extend Web services to provide functionality and ease of use that will map business processes to application functions in a seamless fashion, regardless of platform, language, or device. Predicting the Future of Web Services (Continued) ADVERTISEMENT Integrated environments such as Microsoft's Visual Studio .NET already provide a core framework to leverage, create, and consume Web services in a seamless fashion. Other integrated environments such as IBM's WebSphere are extending their J2EE environments to incorporate Web services into an easy-to-use development platform. Both the .NET and J2EE camps will enhance their Web services products to further embrace BPM. In the not-too-distant future, it will be possible to discover, bind, and execute Web services dynamically, on the fly, and to coordinate the process flow through one integrated environment. This will allow for external Web services to be widely adopted. Because business relationships are contractual by nature, the need for service level agreements (SLAs), onfidentiality/security, and alternative suppliers is a must for any business providing or consuming Web services. As the number of businesses publishing Web service grows, the industry will gravitate toward a brokerage model. Brokers will provide service alternatives to guarantee 24/7 availability and help monitor/meter Web services. They will also validate service providers and provide one-stop shopping for Web services. Brokers will align themselves with specific vertical industries and become a defining force in future standards. This will consolidate industry specific providers over time, which will feed an ever-increasing field of virtual corporations. Centralize Web Services Web services will greatly expand the availability of centralized real-time services, regardless of platform or device. They'll not only expose functionality, but Web services will carry self-describing information to enable any device to consume or redistribute a service. Organizations have tried for years to provide a centralized view of the their individual services. The need to see an organization's information in real time and to make accurate business decisions based on that information is essential to future business planning. A central repository of Web services can provide the realtime view into the disparate systems throughout the organization. This doesn't alleviate the need for a data warehouse, nor does it work without a solid middleware infrastructure that supports BPM. Centralizing process in real time through the advent of Web services should incorporate a robust transformation product that can normalize responses from multiple systems and present specific data back to requesting services in real time in the correct format. Transformation products can also be used to feed BPM tools to complete a well-rounded, realtime, centralized Web services repository. Ascential Software's DataStage product combined with BPM tools from Vitria, WebMethods, IBM, Microsoft, and so on, will provide a firm base to create a centralized repository that's essential to the future of Web services (see Resources). Predicting the Future of Web Services (Continued) Using Web services to centralize processes is a complex endeavor. The tools you select should provide graphical modeling of the business processes and transparently generate the code necessary to communicate with the Web services according to rules embedded in the model. The industry is moving towards XML Language (XLang) as one of several business process languages to become part of the Web services stack, along with Web Services Flow Language (WSFL) as submitted by IBM. To remain competitive, BPM tool vendors will need to accept a standard business process language so their products can be interchangeable at the business service level. This will allow businesses to select the best BTM tool for their specific environment needs. Web services outside the firewall are on the verge of a great leap forward. That leap will take place by way of new integrated development environments combined with Web services intermediaries (brokers), which will provide the assurances and strong relationships necessary to promote a truly shared services architecture that crosses business boundaries. If you want to get started now, you can combine transformation and BPM tools with Web services integrated development environments from Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, Sun, and BEA to build a basic framework from which to grow on. It will be some time before the Web services stack settles on workflow, collaboration, and orchestration standards. The strong BPM products available currently might be all you need for a long time to make Web services outside the firewall the true Holy Grail of a SOA. About the Author Robert Wegener is the director of solutions for RCG IT's Web services, a provider of IT professional services. He has more than 20 years of information and business engineering experience in operations, customer service, transportation, finance, product development, telecommunications, and information systems. E-mail Robert at dotnet@fawcette.com 中文译文 预测web服务的未来：对于企业中的web服务，解读四大商业驱动力如何打造其发展空间 by Robert Wegener Tech Ed 2003 Issue 在对“web 服务”这个名词含义进行界定的过程中，我们虽然很难预料应该为其准备些什么，但是决不能忽视商业驱动力对于未来技术的重大影响。在本文中，笔者的假定是对于这些驱动力，在适当的位置上有必要的标准，市场上主要的竞争者均对其提供支持，并在此假定的基础上，来探讨这些驱动力的作用（见图1）。主要的驱动力包括：不断增长的市场份额，卸载一些非核心商业功能的趋势，快速简易的联合工艺和良好的适应性，以及集成化，跨平台的服务实时性。同时，在拓展企业业务方面，web 服务也是防火墙内外的有力工具。因此，如前所述，这些驱动力已经具备了推动web服务发展的潜质。 不断增长的市场份额是防火墙以外的最大驱动力。目前，Web能够让业务拓展到全世界的客户。企业通过把促销的链接信息放到别的网站上，用户也能去访问该企业的相关网站。不过，这种技术让客户在网站之间跳来跳去，使得他们觉得很多东西大同小异，反而会失去兴趣,不再有任何购买的行为。于是，商业网站通过增加更多的内容来解决这个问题。但是更多不意味着更好，这种情况下，往往会冲淡公司提供的核心产品的形象。 Web服务有一个最伟大的承诺，那就是能够提供“一站店”的服务。也就是说任何一个商家都可以把别人的web服务放到它自己的网站上，并提供访问相关内容的权限，这样用户就不用离开它的网站也能找到相关商品的信息。比如，有一个独立图书经销商通过整合亚马逊的web服务，使用户可以访问到亚马逊所有的库存图书详情，这样就用不着为了一个特定的标题而把用户送到亚马逊的网站上。一般说来，这样的标题在该图书经销商的网站上是可见的，而对用户却是透明的。这样的话，转销商的利益，亚马逊零售方面的份额都能得到保护和提高，用户使用web服务的经验也会得到提高。提供对终端用户透明服务的这种能力，一方面可以提高用户的购物经验，另一方面也允许在更低的成本下，一些更小的网站能为用户提供更多的服务，此外也让一些业内大老愿意在有相当竞争力的价位下，给一些小公司提供服务。 认真考虑基本要素 当前，一些公司又重新回到了要素支持的运作方法，并把对公司底线促进不大的运作分发出去，他们正在寻求把一些非核心的商业职能工作发包给第三方公司去做，这些第三方公司做起来更好，更快，也更便宜。诚然，许多公司的系统与核心的业务处理已经紧密相连，除非是对业务进行大的拆分才能将其分开，但是，其他的操作如外部的界面就特别适合外包。许多公司将注意力聚焦在一些低风险的业务领域（比如客户呼叫中心）以及一些松散的功能服务，希望能够通过外包节省数十几亿美元的开支。也正是因为这些公司把采取了成本降低的措施和系统外部的调节作用，他们才精力去开发企业资源规划（ERP）系统和客户关系管理(CRM)系统，并提供若干应用软件系列。Web服务恰恰能够把这种结构重组的工作不断推向前进。 对Web服务未来的预测（待续） SAP的MySAP.COM电子商务平台是最显著的一个例子。MySAP.COM是基于面向服务的架构(SOA)，并采用了企业级的Web服务。这种平台充分利用了web服务中SAP业务处理的解决方案，并可允许网关去扩展若干超越业务边界的业务处理和服务。开放以前封闭式的系统不仅可以简化内部一些涉及到系统整体性的问题，还可以提升外部的协作性，使得相关组织卸载掉一些非核心的业务功能，这些非核心的业务功能主要集中在一些特定的业务领域，诸如完成订单，库存控制等。 此种模型为完全的虚拟公司提供了基本的模板。你会发现每个业务功能就像是一片大文章中的小段落，它们通过松散连接的业务对象来获取支持，还能适应供应商关系，产品/市场体系，报价结构的快速变化。在开放的市场上，虚拟的公司可以购买功能模块，而不用考虑任何准入的边界和高成本的壁垒。 对于那些想把目标锁定在特定业务领域的公司来说，这个平台也为他们提供了一个新的业务模型。这些新业务可能会是某项服务的唯一提供者，也有可能充当经纪人的角色。为此，在业务交易的范围内，Web服务将要依靠业务处理管理（BPM）工具，该工具能够协调处理流程，整理Web服务集合的运行。由于对于大多数企业应用集成（EAI）的中间件来说，协调和整理是密不可分的，所以那些EAI中间件的卖家把他们提供的商品范围进行扩展以接纳Web服务，也就成了顺理成章的事了。只不过，这样一来，可靠的BPM工具，可靠的Web服务标准和构架，它们之间的融合会对卸载非核心商业功能的必要性提出挑战。 提供业务处理整合方案 随着SOA的到来，许多中间件的供应商都把Web服务作为自己商品提供的一部分。一些公司（比如Vitria）都把Web服务作为系统整合的解决方案，并以此来降低内部应用整合的复杂度，也以此来把服务扩展到业务以外的合作伙伴和行业中去（见Resources）。 以web服务的方式来展现这些处理过程，可以消除密集型劳动和高效利用私人接口。此外，为了满足市场，合作伙伴，和其他应用不断发展变化的需求，各公司势必也要迅速简洁的改变业务处理流程以便及时跟进，而Web服务恰恰可以为此提供BPM的基础。 注意到以下这点亦非常重要，那就是：即便是将来采用了协调、合作以及工作流程标准的若干层次，在分布式服务这张大的蓝图中，Web服务也只是其中一个小小的部分。不过，值得期待的是，今天的中间件和应用开发工具的卖家一定会把web服务加以扩展，使之在功能性和应用的简易性方面大有可为，这样就可以把业务处理流程无缝接入到应用功能上，正真做到跨平台，跨语言，跨设备。 对Web服务未来的预测（待续） 一些诸如Microsoft's Visual Studio .NET的集成开发环境已经可以提供核心的架构，此种架构可以无缝接入的方式来协调、创建或是消费Web服务。其他诸如IBM的WebSphere的集成开发环境也正在扩展他们的J2EE开发环境，以便能够把Web服务整合到某个简单易用的开发平台上去。预计.NET阵营和J2EE阵营将来都会提升各自的Web服务产品，争取能进一步的接纳BPM。在不久的将来，人们可能发现，绑定，动态运行web服务，或是挂起，抑或是通过某个集成的开发环境调整处理流程，让外部的web服务在一个非常广泛的领域中被采用。由于许多业务关系是约定俗成的，因而就需要有相关的服务水平协议(SLAs)，相关的保密安全协议以及可供选择的供应商，而这些需求又是任何业务提供和消费web服务必不可少的。 随着业务上发布的web服务数量的不断增加，整个行业将被吸引到往经纪人业务模型这个方向发展。众多经纪人会提供若干可供选择的服务，并会保证这些服务是全天候的，还能帮忙监控评估相关的web服务。这些经纪人也将负责验证服务提供者的有效性，还将提供基于Web服务的“一站店”，他们还会与一些行业规则看齐，并会成为未来标准的制定者之一。这样一来，对于那些业内特定的供应商来说，他们地位的巩固性就会与时俱进，进而又能培育出虚拟公司不断增长的应用领域。 Web服务的集中性 对于集中式实时服务来说，Web服务以跨平台或跨设备的方式极大的扩展了它们的可用性。除了展示相关的功能以外，web服务还能携带自我描述的信息，可以让任何一个设备消费或是重新分配某项服务。 数年来，各种组织都试图把它们单独的服务集中起来。这样就需要实时看到某个组织的信息，并基于此信息做出准确的业务抉择，而这些优势又是将来业务规划必不可少的。对于贯穿整个组织内各个不同的系统，Web 服务的中心库可以把实时的视图放置于其中，降低了对数据仓库的需求，还可以兼容于那些支持BPM的底层中间件。 由Web服务的出现而引发的实时性服务集成处理，应当有一个健壮的转换产品，该产品可以规范化来自多系统的响应，并能以正确的格式实时的把特定的数据送回以请求服务。这种转换产品也可以用来培育开发BPM工具，以此来提升web服务中心库的完备性，实时性和集成性。Ascentia软件公司的DataStage产品，结合了来自Vitria, WebMethods, IBM，微软等公司的BPM工具，提供了集成中心库的坚实基础，并对web服务的将来发展是起到至关重要的作用。（见Resources） 对Web服务未来的预测（待续） 利用Web服务来集成处理流程是一件很复杂的工作。你可以选择相关工具来对业务处理流程进行图形化建模，并透明的生成必要代码，根据模型内部嵌入的规则，和web服务进行沟通。目前整个行业正在向XML语言转移，该语言是几种业务处理语言之一，也是Web服务堆栈的一部分，和Web服务流程语言（WSFL）一起都是由IBM提交的。为了保持市场竞争力，BPM工具的卖家可能需要接纳一种标准的业务处理语言，这样，他们的产品就能在业务服务的层面上做到相互之间可以进行修改。另外，还能为一些业务流程选择到最好的BTM工具，满足特定环境的需求。 防火墙外的Web服务目前正面临着向前巨大跃进的大好机遇。这种跃进是由新的集成式开发环境结合web服务经纪人来引发的，并为推动跨业务边界的真正共享式服务的发展提供强有力的保证和必要的相互关系。 如果你想现在就开始，你就应该用微软、IBM、Oracle、Sun和BEA 的Web服务集成开发环境来把转换产品和BPM工具相结合，以此来构造一个可扩展的基础性架构。当然，要把Web服务的堆栈放到工作流程，合作协调的标准之上，仍尚需时日。为了使防火墙外的web服务成为真正的SOA圣杯，在相当长的时间内，你所需要的仍然是目前强大的BPM产品。 关于作者 Robert Wegener先生是RCT IT 公司Web服务解决方案的主管，该公司是一家IT专业服务的供应商。在信息和业务工程方面，比如操作，客户服务，运输，财务，产品开发，电信和信息系统等方面，Robert Wegener先生有着20多年的丰富经验。他的电子邮件：dotnet@fawcette.com.

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