IBM WebSphere Registry/Repository and Interop with .NET, part 2
In a prior post, I said that there was no good interop story between .NET and the IBM WebSphere Registry and Repository (WSRR). I said this based on an examination of the WSRR documentation. IBM's product doc is available online and keeping to the IBM standard, is usually very thorough and clear. I looked all through the doc and did not find any reference to a SOAP API, or any other option which would allow interop between .NET apps (or tools) and the IBM WSRR.
But I apparently missed it. Mea culpa! A colleague pointed out the doc reference to me today.
In fact there is a SOAP interface for the WSRR, IBM calls it a SOAP API.
It's a bit funny though; IBM has a big disclaimer on the doc page:
Deprecation of this API
IBM is working to define a standard API for a service registry such as WSRR. The current SOAP API will be deprecated when such a standard API is defined.
A quick look through the doc, it's pretty clear that it's a temporary measure. The usability of the thing looks iffy. I don't mean to cast stones. It just looks half-baked is all.
Anne Thomas Manes suggested that IBM could have supported UDDI as at least one of the network protocols to access this registry, and thereby support a number of tools that already speak UDDI. IBM could have done that but they didn't.
In a related note, today I heard about a customer who is implementing a custom Visual Studio plug-in that will access the IBM WSRR, via that SOAP API. It will be interesting to see how the exercise goes.
There ya have it.