Web Services at ETH Zurich

Thursday, 16 December 2004, 15:00-17:30, ETH Zentrum, HG D 22

Motivation

ETH Zurich provides and operates a lot of application software, that staff and students can access over a web interface. These application interfaces, however, support only the web browser to access the embedded algorithms. There is currently little or no support to access them from other applications.

With the event "Explore! Web Services" we want to discuss how the existing web applications can be made available as web services. With this application friendly interfaces

• it should be possible to access the functionality from other applications (e.g. myETH);
• new services can be offered by merging the functionality of existing applications (building blocks, Enterprise Application Integration)
• it should be possible for mobile code agents like crawlers, spiders or web bots to access the existing web applications.

Program

15:00 Welcome and Introduction; Michele De Lorenzi, ETH World

Presentation as PDF File

15:10 Web Services in US Fortune-1000 Companies; Dan Decasper, Jibe Networks

Presentation as PDF File

"Since Microsoft, IBM, BEA and others put Web Services on the map in 2000, they have been going through a hype cycle typical for new technologies. But nothing ever happens quite as fast as technology vendors would like. However, Web Services are a matter of fact in many companies today. Over the last nine months, Jibe Networks has been engaging with more than 200 of the 1000 largest US enterprises. This talk will discuss what we learned: who is using Web Services and what for, what are the technical challenges, how are these challenges addressed, and how do enterprises see web services applications evolve over the next 3-5 years."

Jibe Networks

www.jibenetworks.com

15:45 uddi.ethz.ch; Marcel Baur, ETH World

Presentation as PDF File

"Towards a directory and ontology of ETH Web Services."

16:05 A Web Interface for ShaRef; Erik Wilde, ETH Zurich

Presentation as PDF File

"ShaRef aims at providing a solution for creating, managing, and sharing reference information on the web and offline. We show how we plan to add a Web Services interface to ShaRef."

16:30 Break

16:45 Web Services at EPF Lausanne: Lessons Learned; Pierre Crevoisier, EPF Lausanne

Presentation as PDF File

"The EPFL started in 2003 with a first draft of its Web Services project. In an heterogenous environment, the Web Services seem to be the key concept of a pragmatic integration. We implemented our UDDI directory in October 2003. The purpose was to set up a unique access point to all available services provided at EPFL. One year later, there's a gap between the idea and the reality... Between social engineering and technological knowledge, we'll try to explain why."

17:10 A Web Service Interface for the ETH Course Catalogue; Armin Wittman and Reinhard Hess, ETH Zurich

Presentation as PDF File

"The ICT Services of ETH (Betriebsinformatik and TIM) will offer access to the ETH Course Catalogue Data over a new Web Service. The service will become operational at the end of January 2005. The implementation is based on the SOAP standard. Apache Axis interfaces a J2EE Application Server infrastructure on Bea Weblogic Server. Our presentation will include a live demo of the service. The technical and operational advantages and the limitations of our approach will also be discussed."

ETH Course Catalogue

www.vorlesungsverzeichnis.ethz.ch

SOAP

www.w3.org/TR/soap/

Apache Axis

ws.apache.org/axis/

J2EE

java.sun.com/j2ee/

17:35 Discussion

18:00 Close