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(For more resources on Axis2, see here.)

Axis2 Architecture

Axis2 is built upon a modular architecture that consists of core modules and non-core modules. The core engine is said to be a pure SOAP processing engine (there is not any JAX-PRC concept burnt into the core). Every message coming into the system has to be transformed into a SOAP message before it is handed over to the core engine. An incoming message can either be a SOAP message or a non-SOAP message (REST JSON or JMX). But at the transport level, it will be converted into a SOAP message.

When Axis2 was designed, the following key rules were incorporated into the architecture. These rules were mainly applied to achieve a highly flexible and extensible SOAP processing engine:

  • Separation of logic and state to provide a stateless processing mechanism. (This is because Web Services are stateless.)
  • A single information model in order to enable the system to suspend and resume.
  • Ability to extend support to newer Web Service specifications with minimal changes made to the core architecture.

The figure below shows all the key components in Axis2 architecture (including core components as well as non-core components).

Quickstart Apache Axis2

Core Modules

  • XML Processing Model : Managing or processing the SOAP message is the most diffcult part of the execution of a message. The efficiency of message processing is the single most important factor that decides the performance of the entire system. Axis1 uses DOM as its message representation mechanism. However, Axis2 introduced a fresh XML InfoSet-based representation for SOAP messages. It is known as AXIOM (AXIs Object Model). AXIOM encapsulates the complexities of efficient XML processing within the implementation.
  • SOAP Processing Model :  This model involves the processing of an incoming SOAP message. The model defines the different stages (phases) that the execution will walk through. The user can then extend the processing model in specific places.
  • Information Model :  This keeps both static and dynamic states and has the logic to process them. The information model consists of two hierarchies to keep static and run-time information separate. Service life cycle and service session management are two objectives in the information model.
  • Deployment Model :  The deployment model allows the user to easily deploy the services, configure the transports, and extend the SOAP Processing Model. It also introduces newer deployment mechanisms in order to handle hot deployment, hot updates, and J2EE-style deployment.
  • Client API : This provides a convenient API for users to interact with Web Services using Axis2. The API consists of two sub-APIs, for average and advanced users. Axis2 default implementation supports all the eight MEPs (Message Exchange Patterns) defined in WSDL 2.0. The API also allows easy extension to support custom MEPs.
  • Transports :  Axis2 defines a transport framework that allows the user to use and expose the same service in multiple transports. The transports fit into specific places in the SOAP processing model. The implementation, by default, provides a few common transports (HTTP, SMTP, JMX, TCP and so on). However, the user can write or plug-in custom transports, if needed.

XML Processing Model

Axis2 is built on a completely new architecture as compared to Axis 1.x. One of the key reasons for introducing Axis2 was to have a better, and an efficient XML processing model. Axis 1.x used DOM as its XML representation mechanism, which required the complete object hierarchy (corresponding to incoming message) to be kept in memory. This will not be a problem for a message of small size. But when it comes to a message of large size, it becomes an issue. To overcome this problem, Axis2 has introduced a new XML representation.

AXIOM (AXIs Object Model) forms the basis of the XML representation for every SOAP-based message in Axis2. The advantage of AXIOM over other XML InfoSet representations is that it is based on the PULL parser technique, whereas most others are based on the PUSH parser technique. The main advantage of PULL over PUSH is that in the PULL technique, the invoker has full control over the parser and it can request the next event and act upon that, whereas in case of PUSH, the parser has limited control and delegates most of the functionality to handlers that respond to the events that are fired during its processing of the document.

Since AXIOM is based on the PULL parser technique, it has on-demand-building capability whereby it will build an object model only if it is asked to do so. If required, one can directly access the underlying PULL parser from AXIOM, and use that rather than build an OM (Object Model).

SOAP Processing Model

Sending and receiving SOAP messages can be considered two of the key jobs of the SOAP-processing engine. The architecture in Axis2 provides two Pipes (‘Flows’), in order to perform two basic actions. The AxisEngine or driver of Axis2 defines two methods, send() and receive() to implement these two Pipes. The two pipes are namedInFlow and OutFlow.   The complex Message Exchange Patterns (MEPs) are constructed by combining these two types of pipes. It should be noted that in addition to these two pipes there are two other pipes as well, and those two help in handling incoming Fault messages and sending a Fault message.

Extensibility of the SOAP processing model is provided through handlers. When a SOAP message is being processed, the handlers that are registered will be executed. The handlers can be registered in global, service, or in operation scopes, and the final handler chain is calculated by combining the handlers from all the scopes.

The handlers act as interceptors, and they process parts of the SOAP message and provide the quality of service features (a good example of quality of service is security or reliability). Usually handlers work on the SOAP headers; but they may access or change the SOAP body as well.

The concept of a flow is very simple and it constitutes a series of phases wherein a phase refers to a collection of handlers. Depending on the MEP for a given method invocation, the number of flows associated with it may vary. In the case of an in-only MEP, the corresponding method invocation has only one pipe, that is, the message will only go through the in pipe (inflow). On the other hand, in the case of in-out MEP, the message will go through two pipes, that is the in pipe (inflow) and the out pipe (outflow). When a SOAP message is being sent, an OutFlow begins. The OutFlow invokes the handlers and ends with a Transport Sender that sends the SOAP message to the target endpoint. The SOAP message is received by a Transport Receiver at the target endpoint, which reads the SOAP message and starts the InFlow. The InFlow consists of handlers and ends with the Message Receiver, which handles the actual business logic invocation.

A phase is a logical collection of one or more handlers, and sometimes a phase itself acts as a handler. Axis2 introduced the phase concept as an easy way of extending core functionalities. In Axis 1.x, we need to change the global configuration files if we want to add a handler into a handler chain. But Axis2 makes it easier by using the concept of phases and phase rules. Phase rules specify how a given set of handlers, inside a particular phase, are ordered. The figure below illustrates a flow and its phases.

Quickstart Apache Axis2

If the message has gone through the execution chain without having any problem, then the engine will hand over the message to the message receiver in order to do the business logic invocation, After this, it is up to the message receiver to invoke the service and send the response, if necessary. The figure below shows how the Message Receiver fits into the execution chain.

Quickstart Apache Axis2

The two pipes do not differentiate between the server and the client. The SOAP processing model handles the complexity and provides two abstract pipes to the user. The different areas or the stages of the pipes are named ‘phases’ in Axis2.

A handler always runs inside a phase, and the phase provides a mechanism to specify the ordering of handlers. Both pipes have built-in phases, and both define the areas for User Phases, which can be defined by the user, as well.

Information Model

As  shown  in  the figure below, the information model consists of two hierarchies: Description hierarchy and Context hierarchy. The Description hierarchy represents the static data that may come from different deployment descriptors. If hot deployment is turned off, then the description hierarchy is not likely to change. If hot deployment is turned on, then we can deploy the service while the system is up and running. In this case, the description hierarchy is updated with the corresponding data of the service. The context hierarchy keeps run-time data. Unlike the description hierarchy, the context hierarchy keeps on changing when the server starts receiving messages.

These two hierarchies create a model that provides the ability to search for key value pairs. When the values are to be searched for at a given level, they are searched while moving up the hierarchy until a match is found. In the resulting model, the lower levels override the values present in the upper levels. For example, when a value has been searched for in the Message Context and is not found, then it would be searched in the Operation Context, and so on. The search is first done up the hierarchy, and if the starting point is a Context then it would search for in the Description hierarchy as well.

This allows the user to declare and override values, with the result being a very flexible configuration model. The flexibility could be the Achilles’ heel of the system, as the search is expensive, especially for something that does not exist.

Quickstart Apache Axis2

Deployment Model

The previous versions of Axis failed to address the usability factor involved in the deployment of a Web Service. This was due to the fact that Axis 1.x was released mainly to prove the Web Service concepts. Therefore in Axis 1.x, the user has to manually invoke the admin client and update the server classpath. Then, you need to restart the server in order to apply the changes. This burdensome deployment model was a definite barrier for beginners. Axis2 is engineered to overcome this drawback, and provide a flexible, user-friendly, easily configurable deployment model.

Axis2 deployment introduced a J2EE-like deployment mechanism, wherein the developer can bundle all the class files, library files, resources files, and configuration fi  les together as an archive file, and drop it in a specified location in the file system.

The concept of hot deployment and hot update is not a new technical paradigm, particularly for the Web Service platform. But in the case of Apache Axis, it is a new feature. Therefore, when Axis2 was developed, hot deployment features were added to the feature list.

  • Hot deployment : This refers to the capability to deploy services while the system is up and running. In a real time system or in a business environment, the availability of the system is very important. If the processing of the system is slow, even for a moment, then the loss might be substantial and it may affect the viability of the business. In the meanwhile, it is required to add new service to the system. If this can be done without needing to shut down the servers, it will be a great achievement. Axis2 addresses this issue and provides a Web Service hot deployment ability, wherein we need not shut down the system to deploy a new Web Service. All that needs to be done is to drop the required Web Service archive into the services directory in the repository. The deployment model will automatically deploy the service and make it available.
  • Hot update : This refers to the ability to make changes to an existing Web Service without even shutting down the system. This is an essential feature, which is best suited to use in a testing environment. It is not advisable to use hot updates in a real-time system, because a hot update could lead a system into an unknown state. Additionally, there is the possibility of loosening the existing service data of that service. To prevent this, Axis2 comes with the hot update parameter set to FALSE by default.

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