WSO2 has announced its WSO2 Data Services, a tool which lets database administrators expose data via a Web services API without programming. With WSO2 Data Services, DBAs and database programmers can contribute to an organization's Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) by creating WS-* style Web services and REST-style Web resources based on enterprise data. The WSO2 Data Services approach lets users enter queries and map them into services and operations. The UI lets anyone with a knowledge of the SQL create powerful data services. Once the query or stored procedure has been exposed as a service, it can be accessed across the network as a service or Web resource.
In its initial release, WSO2 Data Services supports access to data stored in relational databases such as Oracle, MySQL and IBM DB2 (virtually any database accessible via JDBC), as well as the comma-separated values (CSV) file format, and Excel spreadsheets. Services can be authenticated, encrypted and/or signed using the WS-Security and HTTP security standards, and the console includes a full security management capability. In addition, support for the WS-ReliableMessaging standard provides enterprise-level reliability.
The standalone WSO2 Data Services solution builds on the proven performance of the data services functionality within the WSO2 Web Services Application Server (WSAS) 2.0. WSO2 Data Services is based on the Apache Axis2 toolkit. Key features of the product include:
- Data aggregation: administrators can create services that aggregate data from multiple data sources, in order to offer cleanly defined services to other departments and hide internal database details.
- Wizards for easy configuration: users can create and modify a service using either the graphical Web-based wizard or Eclipse plug-in wizard.
- XML configuration file format: XML is a familiar tool to both DBAs and programmers, and this allows service creation to be automated.
- Try-it tool: with the click of a button, the utility lets users test the data services they have created within the Data Services console.
- Customizable XML output: response data can be tailored as needed.
- Dual REST and WS-* support: REST resources access data using a unique URL for each record; WS-* services use typical Web service access to expose data.
- Built-in connection pooling support: the ability to establish a pool of reusable connections saves time and compute resources.
- Support for stored procedures and functions: it only takes a few mouse clicks to expose the stored procedures and functions that speed database operations as Web services.
- Built-in caching: cached responses to queries eliminate the system overhead of repeatedly returning the same XML response to clients.
- Throttling: IT professionals can prevent databases from being overloaded through rate-based throttling, which limits number of the service calls in a given time period, and concurrency-based throttling, which limits the number of simultaneous calls for a service.
"There is significant demand among enterprises for an efficient and effective way to unlock data from a wide variety of sources, and expose this data as Web services for use within SOAs," said Dr. Sanjiva Weerawarana, CEO of WSO2. "Our new WSO2 Data Services solution further democratizes SOA by providing a flexible product that anyone with fundamental data management knowledge can use immediately out of the box."
