Natural Business Services allows you to create and maintain business services. Each business service combines a group of methods related to a common business entity, such as a customer or order. Processing for the methods is supplied by either existing or wizard-generated Natural subprograms. The definition for each service is stored in the business service repository and identifies the associated methods.
As data typically comes from different platforms and uses different character sets, each business service requires a subprogram proxy to retrieve data. All business code is contained in the subprogram that is called by the proxy.
During generation, the Business Service wizard:
Creates the subprogram proxy
Populates the business repository with information about the methods used by the service
Provides the domain, service, and version specifications
Adds the method and service descriptions to the business repository explorer
For information on how Natural Business Services creates business services, see Understanding Natural Business Services.
This section covers the following topics:
Natural Business Services provides different techniques you can use to create Web services for existing business services. Depending on the product you prefer and your development requirements, you have several choices. The following table describes three techniques to create Web services:
| Component/Location | Technology | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Eclipse plug-in | Java, Apache AXIS | The Natural Business
Services Eclipse plug-in generates Web service classes and
descriptor files that are understood by the Apache AXIS framework. The plug-in
provides a wizard to generate a client proxy (which is used to translate
Natural data formats to the appropriate language formats) and, optionally, a
Web service for an existing business service. Once the proxy has been created,
the features of Eclipse can be used. In addition, the Eclipse plug-in provides
an option to generate default tests based on all the methods used by a business
service.
Once generated, you can deploy the Web service using the WS-Stack plug-in. |
| Visual Studio add-in (ASMX method) | Natural Development Server (NDV) and EntireX | The Natural Business
Services Visual Studio add-in generates .NET client proxy classes
you can use in an ASP.NET Web service project. You can then expose the
properties and methods to a Web service class. This method requires coding on
your part (for an example of this method, see SAMPLES in the
Natural Business Services Installation folder).
This add-in provides two wizards: one allows you to select an existing business service from the Business Service repository explorer and then generate a client proxy (which is used to translate Natural data formats to the appropriate language formats) and another generates a Web service for an existing business service. Once the proxy has been created, the features of Visual Studio can be used. For example, .NET’s Intellisense can provide the attributes for the business service. In addition, the .NET add-in provides an option to generate default tests based on all the methods used by a business service. |
| .NET runtime and IIS (Internet Information Server) | In addition to generating business services, the
Visual Studio add-in allows you to create a Web service that uses the IIS
(Internet Information Server) .NET runtime to execute the Web Service Engine
(WSE). Although the business service is written in
Natural, you can code in .NET within user exits. The
add-in also allows you to send and receive SOAP messages from a Web service and
generate the basic components of a web application (for example, HTML,
JavaScript, or XSL).
Note: |
Note:
Although the Natural Development Server
(NDV) communication is available for the Visual Studio add-in and can be used
at runtime, it is not recommended. NDV is intended for a development
environment with relatively few users, while EntireX
communication is intended for production applications that have many
users.
If your Natural environment handles Unicode, the Business Service wizard can generate and invoke services that use Unicode parameters.
According to their implementation in Natural, Unicode values must be stored in fields with U format. This means that subprograms that implement your business services will have one or more U format parameters in their parameter data areas (PDAs).
Natural Business Services does not require special settings to generate business services containing Unicode format fields. However, your runtime environment must use the supplied Unicode dispatcher to consume Unicode services. To allow this, run the CSRLOAD utility and enter "Y" in the Unicode field. CSRLOAD creates the Natural Business Services server definitions.
Note:
Although the Unicode dispatcher (implemented via SPSDISPU) can
process both Unicode and non-Unicode requests and replace the standard
dispatcher (implemented via SPSDISP), it will only run in a Unicode-enabled
Natural environment.
For more information on the CSRLOAD utility, see:
Mainframe platforms: Load Default Repository Data
Unix platforms: Load Default Repository Data
For more information on Unicode support, refer to the Natural documentation.
