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Re: Are Web Services an Investment or an infinite Cost?
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Posted: Dec 4, 2005 9:18 PM
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> Excellent questions. I can assume that 'Web services' are
> off the table as an option due to the "infinite cost"
> associated with them?
Well, the question is, is the cost of your software systems creating a return that represents a gain. The title line to this blog is a real question. There is continuous cost involved in web services for the next several years as the standards evolve. You'll get to upgrade, replace, reengineer etc. Whether you use an opensource APP server, or buy something from a vendor, there will be a cost. Those who are already using web services have invested already. If there's a positive return on that investment, maybe that cost is okay for the short term.
The question for me (and this is the topic of this blog), is after you get some return on the easy web services work, does that create such a huge amount of dependency on the APP server, the protocols and the infrastructure that you loose your ability to do things cheap, using less costly technologies? Will you always be looking for the next generation SOAP compression device? Will you always be trying to figure out which message you want to attach a particular document element to because you can't change a service since the clients can't adapt to that change without be updated and going through redeployment.
Jini lets you deploy code dynamically so that you can always adapt and improve your bus, without impacting the client interfaces. The separation of the transport from the actions being transported is a paramount improvement that no other RPC/messaging system provides, except those with mobile code, such as Jini/Java based solutions.
You can inject compression, dispersion, multiplexing, demultiplexing etc. The client doesn't have to care and will likely never "know" that you did.
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