Web Services and Java Middleware Functional and Performance Analysis for SOA

This article focuses on analysis of key middleware technologies for realization of SOA on Java platform. It compares Web services, native Java distributed technology RMI (remote method invocation), and various alternatives which allow communication through firewalls and proxies, including HTTP-to-port, HTTP-to-CGI, and HTTP-to-servlet tunneling. In addition to functional comparison the article presents a detailed performance analysis with overhead analysis and identification of optimizations. The paper contributes to the understanding of functional and performance aspects of distributed middleware technologies for realization of SOA.