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| <concept id="cwsil" xml:lang="en-us"> |
| <title>Web Services Inspection Language (WSIL)</title> |
| <shortdesc>Web Services Inspection Language (WSIL) is a service discovery |
| mechanism that is an alternative to UDDI as well as complementary to UDDI. |
| When you discover Web services with UDDI, you go to a centralized registry. |
| WSIL is an alternative approach to Web service discovery. WSIL allows |
| you to go directly to the service provider and ask for the services it provides.</shortdesc> |
| <prolog><metadata> |
| <keywords><indexterm>WSIL files<indexterm>overview</indexterm></indexterm> |
| <indexterm>Web services<indexterm>WSIL</indexterm></indexterm></keywords> |
| </metadata></prolog> |
| <conbody> |
| <p><tm tmclass="ibm" tmowner="IBM Corporation" tmtype="reg" trademark="IBM">IBM</tm> and |
| Microsoft's proposal for the WSIL specification is designed around an XML-based |
| model for building an aggregation of references to existing Web service descriptions, |
| that are exposed using standard Web server technology.</p> |
| <p>WSIL provides a distributed service discovery method that supplies references |
| to service descriptions at the service provider's point-of-offering, by specifying |
| how to inspect a Web site for available Web services. The WSIL specification |
| defines the locations on a Web site where you can look for Web service descriptions.</p> |
| <p>Since WSIL focuses on distributed service discovery, the WSIL specification |
| complements UDDI by facilitating the discovery of services that are available |
| on Web sites that may not be listed yet in a UDDI registry. A separate topic |
| in this documentation discusses the <xref href="cwsilud.dita">Relationship |
| between UDDI and WSIL</xref>.</p> |
| <p>The WSIL specification does not define a service description language. |
| WSIL documents provide a method for aggregating different types of service |
| descriptions. Within a WSIL document, a single service can have more |
| than one reference to a service description. For example, a single Web |
| service might be referenced twice in a WSIL document: once directly via its |
| WSDL, and again via its businessService entry in a UDDI registry. References |
| to these two service descriptions should be put into a WSIL document. |
| If multiple references are available, it is beneficial to put all of them |
| in the WSIL document so that the application that uses the document can select |
| the type of service description that is compatible with and preferred by that |
| application.</p> |
| <p>The WSIL specification serves two primary functions:</p> |
| <ul> |
| <li>WSIL defines an XML format for listing references to existing service |
| descriptions. These service descriptions can be defined in any format, such |
| as WSDL, UDDI, or plain HTML. A WSIL document is generally made available |
| at the point-of-offering for the services that are referenced within the document. |
| A WSIL document can contain a list of references to service descriptions, |
| as well as references to other WSIL documents. <p>The ability to link a WSIL |
| document to one or more different WSIL documents allows you to manage service |
| description references by grouping them into different documents and to build |
| a hierarchy of WSIL documents. For example, separate WSIL documents |
| can be created for different categories of services, and one primary WSIL |
| document can link all of them together.</p></li> |
| <li>WSIL defines a set of conventions so that it is easy to locate other WSIL |
| documents. The WSIL specification does not limit the type of service descriptions |
| that can be referenced. The WSIL specification defines a set of standard |
| extensibility elements for both WSDL and UDDI. The WSIL specification |
| is the definition of locations where you can access WSIL documents.</li> |
| <li> Two conventions make the location and retrieval of WSIL documents easy: <ul> |
| <li> <uicontrol>Fixed-name WSIL documents.</uicontrol> The fixed name for |
| WSIL documents is inspection.wsil. The inspection.wsil file is placed |
| at common entry points for a Web site. For example, if the common entry |
| point is http://entrypoint.com then the location of the WSIL document would |
| be http://entrypoint.com/inspection.wsil</li> |
| <li> <uicontrol>Linked WSIL documents.</uicontrol> References to WSIL documents |
| can also appear within different content documents, such as HTML pages.</li> |
| </ul> </li> |
| </ul> |
| <p>For more information on the Web Services Inspection Language specification, |
| refer to <xref href="http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/webservices/library/ws-wsilspec.html" |
| scope="external"> www.ibm.com/developerworks/webservices/library/ws-wsilspec.html</xref></p> |
| </conbody> |
| <related-links> |
| <linklist><title>Related Concepts</title> |
| <link href="cws.dita"><linktext>Web services overview</linktext></link> |
| <link href="cwsinwsa.dita"><linktext>Tools for Web services development</linktext> |
| </link> |
| </linklist> |
| <linklist><title>Related Tasks</title> |
| <link href="../tasks/toverws.dita" scope="peer"><linktext> Developing Web |
| services</linktext></link> |
| </linklist> |
| </related-links> |
| </concept> |