Web Services

JSR 181 - Web Services Metadata for the Java™ Platform

JSR 181 is a BEA led specification that defines a simplified programming model that facilitates and accelerates the development of enterprise Web Services.

J2EE standard deployment technologies, APIs, and protocols require the J2EE developer to master a substantial amount of information. This JSR reduces the amount of information required to implement Web Services on J2EE by using metadata to specify declaratively the Web Services that each application provides. The metadata annotates the Java source file that implements the Web Service. While the metadata is human readable and editable using a simple text editor, graphical development tools can represent and edit the Java source file using higher levels of abstraction specific to Web Services. This is a simpler and more powerful development environment than traditional coding tools that are used to develop source code using low level APIs.

See the Resources for the specification and reference implementation.