MicroStrategy Web Services Development Kit™ FAQs

1. What are Web services?
Web services are self-contained, self-describing and modular Web applications that can be published, located and invoked across the Web. Web services represent an important evolutionary step in building distributed applications. Web services allow programs written in different languages on different platforms to communicate with each other in a standards-based way. SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) and XML are core technologies of the Web services architecture. Generally speaking, a Web service:

• Is a programmable application, accessible as a component via standard Web protocols, 
• Uses standard Web protocols like HTTP, XML and SOAP, 
• Works through existing proxies and firewalls,
• Can take advantage of HTTP authentication,
• Easily integrates with existing XML messaging solutions,
• Has no conflict with proprietary component-based solutions like CORBA and COM,
• Combines the best aspects of component–based development and the Web, and 
• Is available to a variety of clients (platform independent). 

2. What is the benefit of deploying MicroStrategy reports and analyses as Web services?
Web services can be a valuable way for organizations to use open standards to integrate reports and analyses from MicroStrategy 7i into other business applications (such as an Enterprise Information Portal, Supply Chain Management application, etc.). 

Among other benefits, the integration of MicroStrategy and Web services enables organizations to 

• Leverage investments in existing applications, 
• Reduce development time and future risk through the use of open standards,
• Increase the ROI on BI applications by deploying valuable reports and information to suppliers, partners and customers.

3. What is the MicroStrategy Web Services Development Kit?
The MicroStrategy business intelligence platform has an XML-based architecture that enables all MicroStrategy Web-based functionality to be exposed as a Web service.

The MicroStrategy Web Services Development Kit assists developers in exposing and deploying MicroStrategy functionality as Web services. The Web Services Development Kit is part of the MicroStrategy SDK and is composed of sample source code and documentation. Developers can use the Web Services Development Kit as a starting point to deploy MicroStrategy reports as Web services and plug those Web services into their own applications.

4. What is the content of the MicroStrategy Web Services Development Kit?
When deploying MicroStrategy functionality as a Web service, the Web services architecture will generally consist of two essential components that act as 1) a Web Services container (listener) that listens to requests for MicroStrategy reports as Web Services and passes these requests to the Intelligence Server and 2) the client application that knows how to interact with the MicroStrategy Web Services container to send a Web Services request and get the result back.

The MicroStrategy Web Services Development Kit includes sample code for 

• Exposing a report or a list of reports as a Web service
• This sample code would reside on the Web services container, read the MicroStrategy metadata and expose a report or list of reports
• Retrieving and displaying a list of reports from a Web service
• This sample code would reside on the Web services client

Documentation accompanies the sample code.

5. What programming language does the Web Services Development Kit use?
Currently, the Web Services Development Kit is built as a Java program. It utilizes the MicroStrategy Java Web API and Apache SOAP Toolkit. The Web Services Development Kit has been tested with Apache web server.

6. How can I use the Web Services Development Kit to integrate MicroStrategy reports and analyses with my client application?
Following are the high-level steps required to deploy a MicroStrategy report as a Web service and integrate it with your client application: 

• Ensure your MicroStrategy project and MicroStrategy Intelligence Server and MicroStrategy Web are working properly.
• Ensure the web server or application server housing the Java Servlet container (for example Apache/Tomcat, iPlanet™, IBM® WebSphere®, BEA WebLogic™, etc) is working properly.
• Install and implement the SOAP interface to enable SOAP calls.
• Deploy the Report Web services container as a SOAP service. Sample code for this container is included in the Web Services Development Kit.
• Make use of Web services from the client application via further development(Test it with the sample client application provided).

The above is intended as a high-level roadmap. In deploying a production application, issues such as security, required scalability and optimal caching configurations need to be further considered.

7. What is the relationship between the Web Services Development Kit and the MicroStrategy SDK?
The Web Services Development Kit is a sample application (with associated documentation) of the MicroStrategy SDK. 

8. How can I buy the MicroStrategy Web Services Development Kit?
The MicroStrategy Web Services Development Kit is not sold separately. It is included with purchase of the MicroStrategy SDK. 

To purchase MicroStrategy SDK, please contact your account executive or contact us.