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AJAX with Web Services proof of concept

John Turnbow  July 19 2008 10:14:05 AM
Web services are very exciting. What makes this technology exciting is being able to link to another data source and not care about the technology behind it.  

The benefits of using AJAX with a Web Service (internal or external)
  • No down loading a boat load of data from one environment to another
  • Data is fresh coming from the source (or as near as you can get - e.g. Data Warehouse) - no waiting for updates
  • Network traffic is kept at an optimum as no large transfers of files or data is needed
  • No need for vendor specific drivers or software, so we save money not having to purchase these outdated things or creating them ourselves in house.
  • Data is transferred via a standard accepted format XML
  • Data and functions are defined by the WSDL (Web Services Description Language) so you may not even need to talk to an IT person in another department if the WSDL is documented well. Means people can stay focused on their work.
  • Security models are kept in tact as direct access removes the ability of other ancillary areas to grant access to down loaded data that was not intended.
  • Resources for data integration no longer need to be "Masters" of multiple technologies just to work with data from another system, source, or device.
  • No additional software needed to make this work as with other web solutions
  • Of course all of this together means that you save time, money. Hardware resources, and people resources are kept focused on their intended work.

So, for these benefits, I thought as a proof of concept I would merge AJAX and a Web service.  This means that our Domino applications can work with data on any web service enabled system, software, or device.

We also need a business example to sell to management, so one business example might be that you have a Lotus Notes Deal database with the prices existing in SAP. So, calling the SAP Web service you are able to look-up the price (or post one). The nice thing about the SAP Web service is that it does not care about what technology is being used to call it either. Of course this means working with anyone that is a web service provider, the backend could be anything.

To make this work we have to use some Javascript to call an XMLHTTP request that then calls a Lotus Notes agent that then calls a Web Service. A lot of moving parts, but once you create a repeatable template then it can be used over and over again. This may seem a little convoluted, but remember the web service can reside anywhere and we don't care about the technology behind it.

This is a simple build on of technology, instead of doing something native to Lotus Notes/Domino with AJAX now we add an extra ingredient to our Lotus Notes Agent to run a web service behind the scenes.

Click Here for Sample

I'll Post the database and code later... Going to teach Tae Kwon Do and then see Batman.