The WebSI Toolkit

The WebML Suite will provide a sophisticated visual environment for specifying and automatically generate interactive front-end web sites making use of XML views, web services, and active documents.

The visual environment will let developers define web sites in terms of easy to use, non-technical abstractions, like site views, pages, content units and operations, define the binding of content units and operations to XML views, web services, or active documents, and deploy web applications consisting of page templates in common mark-up languages and server side scripting languages. It will leverage Web Modeling Language (WebML), a patent-pending notation developed in the context of the Esprit Project W3I3 for the specification of front-end web sites. 

The designer tool will itself use the ASP paradigm, as it will be possible to use the design environment remotely and to describe applications whose deployment will be done directly in the Web farm. Thus, the design tool will itself be configured as an ASP service available on the network; the development of WebSI applications using the design suite in ASP configuration will be demonstrated.

The Active Document Suite will provide the necessary tools to compose existing Web Services and XML queries into more complex services ready to be integrated into site hypertexts or publication channels Two paradigms will be experimented to plug together Web Services: interactive workflow-based composition and active document templates. Workflow-based composition will allow the development of interactive units for invoking and composing services and for dealing with errors, while active documents will allow composing complex documents from the assembling of pieces derived from queries, service invocations or existing documents. Users will be able to identify themselves either with traditional login/password mechanisms or with an exchange of certificates; authorization roles will also be supported.

The Data Integration Suite will provide the necessary functionality to collect and integrate information as XML views in ASP hosted applications. The XML views will support XQuery. A mediator will integrate the various sources and make them available as XML views. A Repository will support XML storage, update and querying. This suite will be integrated in Web Services through an XML API for XQueries of XML views called XDBC (XML DataBase Connectivity).
Brokering Customised Solutions

In order to demonstrate the feasibility of software components suites, we’ll develop three applications in different sectors: 

  • The European-level Business Portal (e-channel), developed by a leading hardware vendor in the European market, will provide a demonstrator in the area of partner management, dealing with the analysis, design and implementation of a multi-country, multi-language, multi-user hosted Web application connecting European units and partners to the services embedded in the company's enterprise applications (e.g., order tracking, technical information management, marketing information management). The portal will extract information from heterogeneous data sources, interact with web services wrapping legacy applications, and offer centrally managed services delivered using the ASP paradigm to partners scattered throughout Europe.
  • The Selling Point Services Application developed by a County Council, will fulfill the most relevant needs of small shops and selling points, by providing them with an ASP-based solution, with the decoupling fostered by web services, to create a two-way service-oriented communication between small shops and a central back office for providing the services. Functionalities covered by the application include workflows for providing start-up services to small shops and for linking them to the County Council, which will provide expertise on shop viability, tuned to favor the initial development of small businesses. The ASP model will favor SMEs as they will be offered minimum start-up fee and no-upfront investment.
  • The Tourism Services Application Tourism Services Application, developed by a leading national tourism office with international connections, will extend an existing Destination Management System with comprehensive web-services. Web services will be made available to other tourist agents or registered customers (including hotels and travel agents) through the ASP paradigm. These will give the user a personalized, more accurate and appropriate access to the large amount of tourism information, integrating data from the tourist office or from heterogeneous sources (like weather conditions, event information, tourist highlights, museums, concerts, exhibits, restaurants, sport and leisure objects, etc)