Chapter 3 Service Endpoint Design

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3.8

Deploying and Packaging a Service Endpoint

Up to now, we have examined Web services on the J2EE platform in terms of

design, development, and implementation. Once you complete the Web services

implementation, you must write its deployment descriptors, package the service

with all its components, and deploy the service. 

E

Developers should, if at all possible, use tools or IDEs to develop a Web ser 

vice. These Web service development tools and IDEs automatically create the 

proper deployment descriptors for the service and correctly handle the packag 

ing of the service steps necessary for a service to operate properly. Further 

more, tools and IDEs hide these details from the developer.

Although you can expect your development tool to perform these tasks for

you, it is good to have a conceptual understanding of the J2EE 1.4 platform

deployment descriptor and packaging structure, since they determine how a

service is deployed on a J2EE server and the service's availability to clients. This

section, which provides a conceptual overview of the deployment and packaging

details, is not essential reading. Nonetheless, you may find it worthwhile to see

how these details contribute to portable, interoperable Web services. 

3.8.1 Service Information in the Deployment Descriptors 

To successfully deploy a service, the developer provides the following information. 

  Deployment related details of the service implementation, including the Web 

service interface, the classes that implement the Web service interface, and so 

forth.

  Details about the Web services to be deployed, such as the ports and mappings

  Details on the WSDL port to port component relationship

More specifically, the deployment descriptor contains information about a

service's port and associated WSDL. Recall from  Web Service Technologies

Integrated in J2EE Platform  on page 49: