DataFlux Data Management Studio 2.6: User Guide

Support for Web Services

Consuming a Web Service in a Data Job

The HTTP Request node and the Web Service node enable you to consume web services in the context of a DataFlux Data Management Studio data job. The HTTP Request node uses get/post (and put or delete) methods to call the web service over HTTP. This can be used to call REST-based services. When calling REST-based services, the result is normally returned in XML or JSON. XML can be handled using the XML Column Input node, which allows you to extract information from the returned XML and store the info in fields which can then be used by subsequent nodes. For more an example of how this can be done, see Managing an HTTP Request.

The Web Service node uses SOAP (over HTTP).

The HTTP Request node supports discovery of input parameters from the URI. The node will extract the information from the URI representing parameters and populate the parameters section of the node properties window so the user does not have to type them in manually. The Web Service node supports WSDL v1.1 in the discovery process. WSDL v2.0 is not supported. In the property window for the nodes, you can specify the path to a file on disk containing the text of the WSDL, or a URL that returns the WSDL. The node will then interpret and extract information about which input and output parameters the service supports and automatically add those to the input and output sections of the node properties window so the user does not have to type them in manually.

Creating a Web Service

To create a web service, you deploy a data job or process job as a web service. For more information about these tasks, see Deploying a Data Job as a Real-Time Service and Deploying a Process Job as a Real-Time Service.

Third-party clients can then call these web services using SOAP over HTTP. Starting with DataFlux Data Management Studio 2.4, there is support for a WSDL per web service. These WSDL files use the WSDL v1.1 format. This allows third-party development environments to generate the code for the web service call, instead of the user having to figure out which parameters the service supports and then hand-coding the web service call