How to access Informatica PowerCenter as a Web Service?
Web Services are services available over the web that enables communication and provide a standard protocol for communication. To enable the communication, we need a medium (HTTP) and a format (XML/JSON).
There are two parties to the web services, namely Service Provider and Service Consumer. A web service provider develops/implements the application (web service) and makes it available over the internet (web). Service Provider publishes an interface for the web services that describes all the attributes of the web service. Service Consumer consumes the web service. For the Consumer to consume the web service, the consumer has to know the services available, request and response parameters, how to call the services and so on.
Hence we can define Web Service as a standardized way of integrating web desk applications using XML, SOAP, WSDL and UDDI open standards over an internet protocol backbone. XML is used to tag the data. SOAP is used to transfer the data. WSDL is used for describing the services available and UDDI is used for listing what services are available.
Web Services is used mainly for two reasons:
Platform agnostic communication
Two different applications can talk to each other and exchange data using web services
PowerCenter Web Hub and Web Services
InformaticaPowerCenter has the ability to expose its job (workflow) as a SOAP web service which can be utilized from external applications to access the data integration functionalities even outside Informatica PowerCenter.
This blog post gives an overview of web service, explains how to create web source and targets, create workflows and test the functionality from Web Service Hub.
Read more at http://www.infotrellis.com/how-to-access-informatica-powercenter-as-a-web-service/
