NLINK is a SOAP Client. It can consume WSDL files published by a web services enabled application and send properly formatted SOAP request messages to it, and receive SOAP responses back as appropriate.

NLINK is a SOAP Server. It can publish any of its pre-built or custom configured interfaces as web services WSDL files. These WSDL files can be consumed by a third party web services enabled system or application. That application can then send SOAP requests to NLINK and NLINK will respond by returning the appropriately formatted SOAP message.



BACKGROUND
Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) is the messaging layer for web services and is arguably the most important protocol in the web services stack. SOAP allows web-based applications to communicate with one another asynchronously by exchanging XML-based messages over HTTP. SOAP’s loosely coupled, simple and firewall-transparent nature makes it a natural fit for today’s Internet-based applications and is a released standard of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).

NLINK can be configured to connect to your legacy business systems using a variety of technologies, (such as SQL, Flat File, XML, DCOM etc.). Once connected, NLINK can bridge the gap between your business systems and the web services enabled applications they need to connect to. After receiving data from your business systems, NLINK can apply content-based routing, mapping, transformation, and sophisticated business rules to the data before generating a SOAP message that is sent to the web services application(s). Response messages, received by NLINK, can be sent back to the original business system(s) or routed to a separate application as necessary. Using the NLINK Web Services eXtender, web services capabilities can be added to your legacy business systems quickly, simply and without any custom programming.

FUNCTIONAL HIGHLIGHTS
The NLINK Web Services eXtender offers many advantages over other approaches when needing to integrate to systems using web services:

• Fast to implement, the NLINK Web Services eXtender is configuration-based requiring no custom coding and uses the NLINK Configuration Module (NCM) to rapidly configure the NLINK meta-database.

• Easy to change, the NLINK Web Services eXtender requires virtually no manual configuration and is, of course, supported by a Wizard in the NLINK Configuration Module.

The NLINK SOAP Wizard

• The NLINK Web Services eXtender can aggregate data from multiple systems or messages before producing an outbound message.

• Transmission of SOAP messages can be scheduled or event-driven (i.e. triggered by a user action).

TECHNICAL RESOURCES
To review the available NLINK product white papers, case studies and presentation videos, please visit the technical resources area of the web site here.

TECHNICAL INFORMATION
For more information regarding the technical details of the NLINK Product Suite please contact: .

SALES AND PRICING INFORMATION
For sales and pricing information regarding the NLINK Product Suite please contact: .