APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR INVOKING A WEB SERVICE IN RESPONSE TO A REQUEST FROM A CLIENT DEVICE

摘要

An apparatus and method for selecting a web service in response to a request from a client device are provided. With the apparatus and method of the present invention, when an a request is received from a client device for the invocation of a web services operation, the request is received in an off-ramp device coupled to an on-ramp device that provides an interface to web services. The off-ramp device verifies that the requested service is in a configuration file and then determines the selection scope of the desired service, as defined in the configuration file. Based on the selection scope of the desired service, the off-ramp can determine whether to perform discovery and selection of a service implementation ("request" selection scope), retrieve a service implementation from a session level cache ("session" selection scope), or retrieve a service implementation from an application level cache ("application" selection scope). If a service implementation corresponding to the requested service does not exist in the session or application level cache, the discovery and selection operations may be performed to identify a service implementation to handle the request and the service implementation may be stored in the appropriate cache.