A Client/Intercept Based System for Optimized Wireless Access to Web Services

In this paper we discuss the introduction of Web Services in the wireless/mobile domain. The use of Web Services is gradually expanding into the mobile internet area where the population of users is rapidly increasing. Web Services offer standardized ways of creating, publishing, searching and invoking services and provide a very important platform for the development of mobile e-commerce. We identify problems related to the use of the verbose protocols of Web Services (i.e., SOAP/HTTP) over the "expensive" wireless medium. Our architecture assumes the existence of WS-aware software (client or provider) in the wireless device. We try to optimize the HTTP/SOAP stream exchanged over the wireless medium. Our effort is largely based on the IBM WebExpress design. Our measurements indicate substantial benefits for the users.