Using WSRP services

The WSRP standard and specification is provided by OASIS. It defines a Web service communication interface for interactive presentation-oriented Web services. This standard simplifies the integration of remote portlets, applications, and content into portals. With WSRP portal administrators can select from a rich choice of remote content, portlets, and applications and integrate them into their portal with just a few mouse clicks and no programming effort. Producers and Consumers use this interface for providing and consuming the Web services. WSRP allows users to perform the following tasks:

• Producers can provide portlets as presentation-oriented WSRP services and make them available to Consumers who want to use these services.
• Consumers can select from a rich choice of available Web services and integrate them into their portal.
• Users can then access the services and work and interact with them just like they do with local portlets.

Using WSRP to perform these tasks has the following benefits:

• WSRP becomes the means for content and application providers to provide their services in an easily consumable form to organizations that run portals.
• By virtue of the common, well-defined WSRP interfaces, all Web services that implement WSRP plug in to all WSRP-compliant portals without requiring any service-specific adapters. A single, service-independent adapter on the portal side is sufficient to integrate any WSRP services.
• Integrating content and applications into portals is made easier. Now, no custom programming effort using a variety of different interfaces and protocols is required. Portal administrators no longer have to write interface code to adapt the WSRP services for their portal.
• Presentation-oriented services, as standardized by WSRP, allow Producer portals to deliver the requested data and their presentation to the Consumer portal. Previously, they delivered the data only, and the portal administrators had to provide the logic for how to present the data.
• Portal administrators do not have to keep the WSRP services code locally on their storage devices.
• The WSRP services appear and operate to portal users exactly like local portlets.

The information given in this WSRP section assumes that you are already familiar with WebSphere Portal Express and with the WSRP specification. If you want more detailed information about the OASIS WSRP specification, refer to the OASIS WSRP Standard Web site at http://oasis-open.org/committees/wsrp.

Before you start working with WSRP in your portal, read the relevant topics about WSRP carefully. This includes the topics about Producers or Consumers, depending on how you want to use WSRP, as well as the topics about planning, security considerations, and hints and tips for using WSRP with your portal.

The following topics provide information about WSRP Producers and Consumers and about how they communicate with each other.