web scripts vs web service

[ra74]

What's the advantage of using web scripts over web services ?

Currently alfresco acts as a standalone black box repository server and I'm using web service client to perform
* CRU(D) operations on a node
* search by metadata
* getting children of a node
* browsing node history and getting specific version of a node
Performance is quite important because it stores and serves CMS content though we have caching mechanism between alfresco and cms server and it helps a lot

+ java api
+ very easy to use, I don't need to parse results
+ no custom extension to the alfresco I have to take care during upgrade
- in general web services are not considered as 'light'
- there're errors in the apache axis implementation (we have fixed one quite severe)
- there's no reliable method to get all the children of a node

We're going to upgrade from alfresco 2.1 to coming 3.2 and I'm wondering if it's worth to change method of access to the alfresco

[rivetlogic]

Hi,

The basic advantages of Web Scripts (Restful Web Services) vs Web Service (SOAP) can be found all over the internet.

Alfresco's support for Web Services (SOAP)  in the latest versions has been great. I would recommend that you take a look at the Wiki , Unit tests, and Source of the latest version. Especially the ones for the group creation and management (http://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/Access_Control_Web_Service_Enhancements). In earlier versions these required writing custom actions.

At the same time, Alfresco's support for Web Scripts has improved tremendously ever since this was introduced ( almost 2 years now. Alfresco 2.1 has web scripts api's).

I would not recommend rewriting all the code if this will be a significant amount of work. One way would be to add any improvements using web scripts and transition into "RestFul" way of accessing alfresco. Also consider "Surf" and Alfresco "Studio". You should be able to listen to a good number of recorded webinar sessions (http://www.alfresco.com/about/events/ondemand/).

Just the migration will provide a good amount of storage and performance boost due to the changes made to VersionStore implementation.

Best Regards,
Shagul