IMS Enterprise Suite SOAP Gateway overview

IBM® IMS Enterprise Suite SOAP Gateway is a web services solution that enables IMS applications to interoperate outside of the IMS environment through the SOAP protocol to provide and request services that are independent of platform, environment, application language, or programming model.

SOAP Gateway enables your IMS application as a web service provider. Different types of client applications, such as Microsoft .NET, Java™, and third-party applications, can submit SOAP requests to IMS to drive the business logic of the IMS applications. With the IMS Connect XML adapter, you can enable your IMS application to become a web service without the need of changing the backend IMS application.

Secured communication is supported between SOAP Gateway and the client that issues the request to access an IMS application. Secured communication is also supported between SOAP Gateway and IMS Connect. SOAP Gateway supports web services security (WS-Security), where user identity or security token is authenticated on a per-message basis. Authentication information can also be passed on a per-web service basis, where the user information is defined in the connection bundle for the web service.

SOAP Gateway also enables your IMS application as a web service consumer. Your IMS applications can make a callout request to access external web service providers and get responses back.

SOAP Gateway is compliant with the industry standards for web services, including SOAP/HTTP 1.1 and Web Services Description Language (WSDL) 1.1. This compliance enables your IMS assets to interoperate openly with various types of applications.