SOA and Web Service

SOA and Web Service are two different things. SOA stands for "Service Oriented Architecture". SOA is an software architecture. SOA is used to create a distributed system. SOA can be used to enable Software as a Service(SAAS). SOA uses the find-bind-execute paradigm. In this paradigm, service providers register their service in a public registry. This registry is used by consumers to find services that match certain criteria. If the registry has such a service, it provides the consumer with a contract and an endpoint address for that service. One thing is that, Services are the building blocks of SOA.

Web Services are the preferred standard-based way to realize SOA architecture. Web services are software systems designed to support interoperable machine-to-machine interaction over a network. This interoperability is gained through a set of XML-based open standards, such as WSDL, SOAP, and UDDI. These standards provide a common approach for defining, publishing, and using web services.

Java API for XML(JAX):
1. Java API for XML Processing(JAXP) 1.2 - This API lets you process XML documents by invoking a SAX or DOM parser in your application. JAXP 1.2 supports W3C XML Schema.

2.Java API for XML-based RPC (JAX-RPC) 1.1 - This is an API for building and deploying SOAP+WSDL web services clients and endpoints.

3.Java APIs for XML Registries (JAXR) 1.0.4 - This is a Java API for accessing different kinds of XML registries. It provides you with a single set of APIs to access a variety of XML registries, including UDDI and the ebXML Registry. You don't need to worry about the nitty-gritty details of each registry's information model.

4.SOAP with Attachments API for Java (SAAJ) 1.2 - This API lets you produce and consume messages conforming to the SOAP 1.1 specification and SOAP with Attachments note.

5.JSR 109: Web services for J2EE 1.0 - JSR 109 defines deployment requirements for web services clients and endpoints by leveraging the JAX-RPC programming model. In addition, it defines standard deployment descriptors using the XML Schema, thereby providing a uniform method of deploying web services onto application servers through a wide range of tools.

6.JAX-WS 2.0 (JSR 224) -

7.JAXB - the Java Architecture for XML Binding.

8.StAX - the Streaming API for XML.

Sun's new version of web service stack is JAX-WS.

The difference between JAX-RPC and JAX-WS web service stack.