Web Services¶

Virtual DataPort can publish views as web services, making it easy for other applications to retrieve data from them. There are two types of web services:

• SOAP web service. It publishes a list of operations to perform over views, which are characterized by a name, a list of input parameters and a return value. There is an operation to query a view and, if the view supports updates, there may be operations to insert, delete or update data too. The web service can include operations on more than one view.

• REST web service. It publishes a list of views as resources. If there are associations among them, they can also be published. To query the view, you need to launch an HTTP request on the corresponding resource. The HTTP method you use in your request determines the action performed on the view: GET retrieves data, POST inserts it, UPDATE modifies it and DELETE removes it.

In addition to views, the Data Catalog allows you to discover the web services published by Virtual DataPort. If you find a web service of your interest while browsing or searching, click its name. You will see all the available information about it, considering both the metadata retrieved from Virtual DataPort and the metadata added by other users of the Data Catalog.

The information about a web service is organized in the following pills:

• Summary. The summary pill shows the basic information of the web service: tags, categories, description, etc.

• Schema. In the schema pill you can find, for each operation or resource, the list of web service fields with their types and descriptions.

• Query. The query pill has a wizard to help you build and launch queries on a REST web service.

• Requests. The requests pill displays the requests created on this web service.

• Usage. The usage pill gives information about the requests that Virtual DataPort received on the web service.

An administrator of the Data Catalog can add custom properties to the web service to improve the information you have about it. According to the configuration, they will appear inside a new section of the Summary pill or in a new pill.

Options available for a web service in the Actions menu¶

In the Actions menu, you will find the following operations for a web service, though your available options will vary depending on your permissions:

• If the web service is synchronized and the user has permissions to create requests, the corresponding options for creating requests will be displayed.

  Types of requests available for a web service:

  • Access request: request type intended to request permissions to access a web service.

  • Change: request type intended for requesting metadata changes.

  • Data quality: request type intended for reporting a problem in the data of the web service that needs to be fixed.

  • Question: request type intended for asking something about the web service.

• Assign tags, categories or property groups.

• Collaborate through endorsements and warnings.

• Mark as deprecated. Remember that you can only write one deprecation about a web service.

  If the web service is deprecated you will see the icon next to its name, and a notification will appear every time you access the web service or click the icon.

  

  The notification with the deprecation messages has a Show details button. Click it to check all deprecations or edit them if you are allowed to.¶

In the Open in menu, click on Connection URLs to obtain the URLs to connect to this web service. In case the web service has not been deployed yet, the option will be disabled.

Click the icon next to the URL to copy it to the clipboard¶