A framework for dynamically converting components to Web services

Components are the basic building blocks of enterprise and distributed applications. Component-based development (CBD) is the technique of using a component framework to develop components and it focuses on developing large software systems by integrating previously existing software components. Software development based on component based architecture is already in wide use throughout the software industry. Component based development makes it possible to assemble an application from a repository of components developed in various languages by homogeneous or heterogeneous composition. Web services provide an easy way to extend component based development by adopting open Internet standards. Web services represent an evolution of the Web to allow the open and flexible interaction of applications over the Internet. Web services standards provide a high level of interoperability across platforms, programming languages and applications. In our current research we have created a model for automatically converting components created in different languages to Web services. The components that are developed in various languages are deployed dynamically (just in time) in the Web servers by using custom built deployers. Using this model the users can access the components that reside in the server using open Internet standards, without having to worry about the language and platform restrictions. The security aspects to access the Web services were also considered while implementing the model.