Download Case Study (PDF) on Developer Tool Kit (Web Services API)

With the Developer Toolkit an experienced Web developer can extend the functionality of NetXposure by creating custom processes that push and pull data to and from external systems, and create individualized Web sites with any and all data stored in your NetXposure repository. The Developer Toolkit is comprised of two components: a low-level Web Services API, and the higher level IP-Interface framework.

WEB SERVICES API

NetXposure’s Web Services delivers a full API so you can essentially remote-control the application from any external system. The API itself is built on Apache’s Axis Web Service framework, meaning that it is entirely standards-compliant and interoperates with Java and .NET. The Web Services API provides SOAP-RPC over HTTP access to NetXposure, and includes documentation, sample code, and Java-wrapper code.

This provides for remote usage of NetXposure from any system that can communicate with standard Web Service protocols, such as SOAP and WSDL allowing any such system to  integrate directly with the repository. Most operations you can manually access through the Web User-Interface can be automated through the Web Service.

What advantages does this service for NetXposure offer? Take for example, a manufacturer that uses Image Portal to store all product imagery, while also maintaining an Ecommerce store for retail that Ecommerce store can integrate into NetXposure via Web Services. This integration can provide for automatic requests for product image shots in all necessary sizes, such as regular, thumbnail and zoom shots. Another potential use for the Web Service API is automatic importing of new assets. If assets bound for storage in the repository originate from an asset creation system, Web Services can be employed to automatically import those assets without the need to manually add them to Image Portal.

The Web Services API provides a standard WSDL interface for auto-discover, as well as a Java wrapper that allows the developer to avoid having to learn anything about Web Services protocols. The Java wrapper provides access to Web Services with the IPClient class; each method handles all the SOAP messaging and authentication for you.

IP-Interface is a massively scalable interface, encapsulating an underlying SOA architecture and providing a sophisticated caching system.

IP-INTERFACE FRAMEWORK

The IP-Interface framework — or Image Portal Interface — is a simple way to provide data and assets from Image Portal to a remote Web application. In a real sense, IP-Interface allows you to leverage and extend your NetXposure investment, augmenting your repository and metadata store as a separate Content Management System (CMS).

As a simple example, you can add asset images stored in NetXposure to your corporate Web site or organization’s intranet. IP-Interface can be used to create a custom built Ecommerce application, utilizing NetXposure to store the product imagery and data. Or IP-Interface can be used to drive informational kiosks. Really, there are many potential applications of which these are but a few.

IP-Interface is not meant as a replacement for Image Portal Web Services. Instead, it sits on top of this system, making it easier and faster to implement. IP-Interface is delivered as a Java Web Application (war) that can be immediately customized into your own custom purposes. All functions are encapsulated into easy to use custom JSP tags.

IP-Interface does not require any additional database. Instead, IP-Interface provides various memory storage and caching systems for minimizing the Web Services calls that would otherwise be necessary. All IP-Interface data is stored in memory only, using a series of object caches. Caching is extremely important with this type of application, and is crucial for speed. Plus, it adds a layer of robustness onto the system by not allowing the IP-Interface to crush NetXposure with requests because there is not a one-to-one relationship between IP-Interface and NetXposure requests. This is achieved because the number of possible requests to NetXposure is limited to IP-Interface’s scheduled updates — no matter how much traffic IP-Interface receives. This means IP-  Interface provides a robust and scalable platform on which you can build your own custom Image Portal driven applications.