Seeking advice with concept / design of a Java Web Services Application

Question

Hi all,
After a week of searching the internet I'm not sure how which projects, services, etc. I should use to develop my application. Please could someone offer some advice?
Application outline (Java application running on Linux):
1. Wait for an instruction from a Windows WCF application. Instruction contains a list of domain names and one or two other parameters.
2. Perform queries upon those domain names (find if they are registered, etc. - takes 10-20 mins to do complete list)
3. Send back results to WCF application.
Solution 1 (first idea):
1. Create SOAP web service using Java Web Services / Apache to listen for requests. Executes a Java Client Application upon request.
2. Java Client Application performs the queries...
3. Java Client Application sends results to the Windows web service.
Solution 1 Problems:
a) Using 2 applications, they won't be able to share the same memory.
b) The whole process will be slow (having to pass the domain names from the service to application and execute the application each time) - A quick response is critical.
c) Would like is for the whole process to be done under one application, sharing the same memory.
Solution 2:
1. Create a Java Daemon from scratch listening for an incoming SOAP message (no web service like Apache/Tomcat involved).
2. Query the domain names in a new thread inside the Java Daemon
3. Send the results back via SOAP.
Solution 2 Problems:
Cannot find examples of how to create a SOAP service from scratch. E.g. creating a WSDL file based on my application; converting application methods to SOAP-callable methods easily (without writing a framework).
With all the Java tools and projects out there - Java EE, Glassfish Project - there must be a very easy way to achieve this seemingly simple task. Please can someone offer some advice?
Many thanks for reading this.
Richard
Edited by: jazzinbrazil on Mar 30, 2009 4:58 AM

Answer 1

You just need an app server like Tomcat.If I'm not wrong, Tomcat is a Servlet container.
Servlets aren't deactivated when they don't receive
any request for some time?
How can I deploy an application to Tomcat in order to
keep it always active?I don't know what you mean. Tomcat is an application that is always running. In what way are the Servlets deactivated?
Apache Axis: http://ws.apache.org/axis/
Yes I'm collecting some info about this... let's see
it!
Finally, to be more clearer... I don't want to start
a new application at each invocation (something like
getting the request, instantiating the necessary
classes and executing them) but to call an already
running app at each invocation (so, getting request
and invoking, in a manner that I don't know, the
running application).The container manages this. If you have data that must remain loaded, you can associate it with the class (use a static modifier.) This will complicate threading, however.
I can use Axis to get the request, but it also grants
me that my app will always be active?I think you are just using the wrong terminology here. What I think you are asking is whether the resources will be loded into memory at all times. If you want to ensure this behavior, you need to associate the data with a class. I'm not 100% positive, but I don't think Tomcat will unload classes in normal circumstances.