Using Asynchrony to Enable Long-Running Operations

A typical non-distributed software application uses synchronous methods between application components. The caller of a synchronous method is blocked from further execution until the method returns. Web services, however, run over networks. The distributed nature of applications using web services introduces unpredictable and sometimes very long latency, meaning the time it takes a particular operation to complete may be long. Some business processes represented by web services may involve human interaction at the back end, meaning an operation may take on the order of days. If all web service interactions were synchronous, each client with an outstanding operation would be consuming resources on its host system for unacceptably long periods of time.

WebLogic Workshop provides facilities that make it easy for you to build asynchronous web services. Using these facilities, you can design web services that don't require clients to block execution waiting for results. You can choose from multiple approaches for returning results to your web service's clients.

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The Web Services Development Cycle

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