1. ColdFusion MX and Web Services From Creation and Consumption

2. Introduction Neil Ross Senior Application Architect with Automation Creations in Blacksburg, Virginia, USA. neil@aciwebs.com / http://www.aciwebs.com Freelance application development as Codesweeper. neil@codesweeper.com / http://www.codesweeper.com Certifications: ColdFusion Developer and ColdFusion Instructor Author: Inside ColdFusion MX http://www.insidecoldfusionmx.com as well as online and CFDJ articles Speaker: ColdFusion DevCon 2000 in DC, CFUGs, MMUGs, CFEurope 2003 Founder and former manager of Central Penn CFUG Currently manager and founder of Southwest Virginia MMUG

3. Overview Explain Web Services Examine how to create your own web services with ColdFusion MX Examine how to consume an existing web service in ColdFusion MX Examine how to publish your web services for consumption by the world

4. What are Web Services? Web services encapsulate existing business processes for publishing to the web A Web Service is a URL-addressable software resource that perform one or more functions Web Services communicate using standard protocol known as SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol)

5. Characteristics A web service is accessible over the web Web services communicate using platform-independent and language-neural web protocols A web service provide an interface to be called by other programs A web service can be registered and located through a web service registry

6. What would you use them for? Expose existing resources to the web Develop new applications from web services Separate business logic from UI components Bundle common functionality across web services Provide Security (Authentication, Authorization) Provide consistency among services

7. Common Web Services Examples of web services include the following: User authentication and authorization Credit card validation Stock quotes E-commerce News and information syndication

8. What do they look like?

9. Parts of a Web Service Web services consist of the following basic components: Publishers create and provide application Brokers maintain a registry of service providers Consumers web pages that access and use the remote web service

10. Creating ColdFusion Components ColdFusion components are the gateway to web services in ColdFusion MX Write a bunch of code thats really complicated to write the XML that comprises your WSDL document…??? NO!!! First step is to create a ColdFusion Component and its very very easy to do

11. CFC Code view Using code view in Dreamweaver MX, select File> New>, then select Dynamic Page from the Category menu and ColdFusion Component from the Dynamic Page menu:

12. CFC wizard view Select the + button on the component tab within the Application panel in DWMX Fill out information requested within the Create Component window.

13. View and Test your CFC Of course, you dont want to assume that your CFC works properly without proper testing From the components tab in the Application panel, expand the component, then select the function to call Drag and drop the selected component function into your CFML template <cfinvoke component="cdsettlement.act.users" method="authenticate_user" returnvariable="authenticate_userRet">

14. Creating the Web Service Select the Components in the Application Panel Select Web Services from the select menu Type in the URL of the WSDL file or the CFC with ?WSDL appended Thats it… click OK and it will be added to your list of available web services

15. Consuming Web Services Connecting programmatically to a Web service is known as consuming it. First… find the web service that you want to connect to Write a bunch of code thats really complicated so that you can connect to the web service but only if you know everything about the web service and its in/out parameters… ??? NO!!!

16. Consuming Web Services Select the Components in the Application Panel Select Web Services from the select menu Drag and drop the web services function into the code editor

17. Web Services in the Real World Currency exchange rates and conversion

18. Web Services in the Real World Currency exchange rates and conversion code

19. Finding Web Services Web services exist in UDDI registries UDDI – Universal Description, Discovery and Integration

20. Finding Web Services Microsoft UDDI Business Registry IBM Web Services and UDDI Xmethods

21. Conclusion Web Services dont have to be a mystery CFMX allows for the easiest implementation of Web Services Dreamweaver MX and ColdFusion MX for web services are the shizzle, fo sheezy! For more information, contact me at: neil@aciwebs.com