FaxPress Plus Web Services SDK

What are Web Services?
Web services are applications whose logic and functions are accessible using standard Internet protocols and data formats such as Extensible Markup Language (XML) over Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), and SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol). Like component−based development, Web services represent black−box functionality that can be reused without worrying about how the service is implemented.

A Web Service interface is defined strictly in terms of the messages that the service accepts and generates. Applications using a Web Service can be implemented on any platform in any programming language, as long as they can create and consume messages defined for the service interface. A Web Service can also aggregate other services to provide a higher−level set of features.

Click here to download the FaxPress Plus Web Services SDK Developer Guide

Why should developers be interested in Web services?

• Interoperability − Any Web Service can interact with any other Web Service and can be written in any language.

• Ubiquity − Web Services communicate using HTTP and XML. Any connected device that supports these technologies can both host and access Web Services.

• Low Barrier to Entry − The concepts behind Web Services are easy to understand, and developers can quickly create and deploy them using many tool−kits available on the web.

• Industry Support − Major content providers and vendors are supporting the Web Services movement.

SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol), a method of sharing messages between client and server, was developed to deal with the limitations of XML/HTTP. SOAP is a lightweight protocol intended for exchanging structured information in a decentralized, distributed environment. It uses XML technologies to define an extensible messaging framework providing a message construct that can be exchanged over a variety of underlying protocols. The framework has been designed to be independent of any particular programming model and other implementation−specific semantics.

FaxPress Plus Web Services offers developers SOAP access to all the functionality of Castelle's FaxPress Plus-based fax servers.

Comparison with CPI C/C++ SDK
The legacy FaxPress line had a CPI API C/C++ SDK. This legacy SDK is supported in the FaxPress Plus line, so that any applications already developed will continue to work. However, the Web Services SDK is only available with the FaxPress Plus-based product line.

The powerful Web Services SDK enables applications to be developed for virtually every enterprise operating system and programming environment. FaxPress Plus exports all its functionality as WS−I (Web Services Interoperability) conformant Web Services. This enables FaxPress to be fully interoperable in .Net environments and Java environments. Sample clients (source code provided) have been written in Java, C#, Visual Basic, and Perl. The clients have been tested for full interoperability on multiple operating systems including MS Windows, Linux, MacOS, and standard Unix platforms.