| A new architecture for Axis2 was introduced during the first Axis2 summit, which was held in 2004 in Colombo, Sri Lanka. This new architecture is more flexible, efficient, and configurable in comparison to Axis1.x architecture. Some well established concepts from Axis 1.x, like handlers, have been preserved in the
new architecture.
Since its introduction less than four years ago, Apache Axis2 has become widely accepted as a framework for practical Web Service development, which is suitable not only for commercial application development, but also as a teaching tool and as a research platform. Apache Axis2 itself has evolved during the past three years, taking into consideration community requirements, and has acquired a number of new features. All of these have been contributed in an effort to create a simple and easy-to-use Web Service framework.
The main goal of this book is to provide an introduction to Axis2. It teaches how to develop web applications using Axis2 and how to make proper use of available features. It does not attempt to cover either Web Services or Axis2 in minute detail, opting rather to provide a good understanding for using both. The in-depth technical details of Axis2, I believe, are best covered in a book in their own right.
When designing and writing this book, my objective was to achieve a number of goals. Firstly, I wanted to present a very clear introductory text, free of verbosity and nonsense, so that a beginner can understand the concepts easily and develop confidence for using the technology within a short period of time. Secondly, I have, as far as possible, tried to cover the concepts in the form of a discussion combined with the instruction style of a tutorial, so that the reader can try out the concepts for himself/herself and grasp them easily. Because of this most of the chapters contain a plethora of comprehensive samples. Thirdly, I have intentionally avoided presenting full descriptions of Axis2 features, while making sure that no important points have been omitted. Descriptions of some of the minor and rarely used features have been left out for the sake of simplicity. And finally, I want this book to help you, the reader, explore, understand, and realize the potential of Web Services and Axis2. |
