Metro is an opensource web service

Web service

A Web service is a method of communication between two electronic devices over the web.The W3C defines a "Web service" as "a software system designed to support interoperable machine-to-machine interaction over a network". It has an interface described in a machine-processable format...

 stack that is a part of the GlassFish

GlassFish

GlassFish is an open source application server project started by Sun Microsystems for the Java EE platform and now sponsored by Oracle Corporation. The supported version is called Oracle GlassFish Server...

 project, though it can also be used in a stand-alone configuration. Components of metro include JAXB RI, JAX-WS

JAX-WS

The Java API for XML Web Services is a Java programming language API for creating web services. It is part of the Java EE platform from Sun Microsystems. Like the other Java EE APIs, JAX-WS uses annotations, introduced in Java SE 5, to simplify the development and deployment of web service clients...

 RI, SAAJ

SAAJ

The SOAP with Attachments API for Java or SAAJ provides a standard way to send XML documents over the Internet from the Java platform.SAAJ enables developers to produce and consume messages conforming to the SOAP 1.1 specification and SOAP with Attachments note.Developers can also use it to write...

 RI, StAX

StAX

Streaming API for XML is an application programming interface to read and write XML documents, originating from the Java programming language community.Traditionally, XML APIs are either:...

 (SJSXP implementation) and WSIT. It is available under the CDDL and GPLv2 (with classpath exception.)

It is supported by Sun Microsystems

Sun Microsystems

Sun Microsystems, Inc. was a company that sold :computers, computer components, :computer software, and :information technology services. Sun was founded on February 24, 1982...

.

History

Originally, the Glassfish project developed two semi-independent project :

• JAX-WS RI, the Reference implementation of the JAX-WS
  JAX-WS
  The Java API for XML Web Services is a Java programming language API for creating web services. It is part of the Java EE platform from Sun Microsystems. Like the other Java EE APIs, JAX-WS uses annotations, introduced in Java SE 5, to simplify the development and deployment of web service clients...
  
   specification
• WSIT, a Java implementation of some of the WS-* and an enhanced support for interoperability with the .NET Framework
  .NET Framework
  The .NET Framework is a software framework that runs primarily on Microsoft Windows. It includes a large library and supports several programming languages which allows language interoperability...
  
  . It is based on JAX-WS RI as "Web Service layer".

In June 2007, it has been decided to bundle these two components as a single component named Metrohttp://blogs.sun.com/arungupta/entry/announcing_metro_naming_the_web.

Market share

Metro is bundled with Java SE

Java Platform, Standard Edition

Java Platform, Standard Edition or Java SE is a widely used platform for programming in the Java language. It is the Java Platform used to deploy portable applications for general use...

 6 in order to allow consumers of Java SE 6 to consume Web Services https://jax-ws.dev.java.net/faq/index.html#different_versions

Metro is bundled with numerous Application Servers http://blogs.sun.com/theaquarium/entry/metro_now_on_tomcat_6 such as :

• GlassFish
  GlassFish
  GlassFish is an open source application server project started by Sun Microsystems for the Java EE platform and now sponsored by Oracle Corporation. The supported version is called Oracle GlassFish Server...
  
  
• Sun Java System Application Server
  Sun Java System Application Server
  The Oracle GlassFish Server , is a platform for delivering server-side Java applications and Web services. Produced by Sun Microsystems, the SJSAS is a Java EE 5 certified application server and is a core part of the Java Enterprise System...
  
    Platform Edition 9.x
• Oracle WebLogic Server
  Oracle Weblogic Server
  Owned by Oracle Corporation, Oracle WebLogic consists of a Java EE platform product-family that includes:* a Java EE application server, WebLogic Application Server* an enterprise portal, WebLogic Portal* an Enterprise Application Integration platform...
  
  
• JBoss
  JBoss
  JBoss Application Server is an open-source Java EE-based application server. An important distinction for this class of software is that it not only implements a server that runs on Java, but it actually implements the Java EE part of Java...
  
   (version 5.x only)
• TmaxSoft
  TmaxSoft
  TmaxSoft is a South Korea-based multinational corporation specializing in enterprise software system. It was founded in 1997 by former KAIST professor Daeyeon Park...
  
   JEUS 6.x

The JAXB reference implementation developed for Metro is used in virtually every Java Web Services framework (Apache Axis2

Apache Axis2

Apache Axis2 is a core engine for Web services. It is a complete re-design and re-write of the widely used Apache Axis SOAP stack. Implementations of Axis2 are available in Java and C....

, Codehaus XFire

Codehaus XFire

is a Java SOAP framework for development and consumption of web services.Unlike earlier similar products, such as Apache Axis 1.x that use in-memory tree models for XML, XFire uses StAX resulting in better performance..Apache Axis2 also uses StAX....

, Apache CXF

Apache CXF

Apache CXF is an open-source, fully featured Web services framework. It originated as the combination of two open-source projects: Celtix developed by IONA Technologies and XFire developed by a team hosted at Codehaus. These two projects were combined by people working together at the Apache...

) and Application Servers.

Features

Metro compares well with other web service frameworks in terms of functionality. A comparison is provided by Codehaus at http://xfire.codehaus.org/Stack+Comparison, which compares Apache Axis

Apache Axis

Apache Axis is an open source, XML based Web service framework. It consists of a Java and a C++ implementation of the SOAP server, and various utilities and APIs for generating and deploying Web service applications. Using Apache Axis, developers can create interoperable, distributed computing...

1.x, Axis 2.x, Celtix, Glue, JBossWS, Xfire 1.2 and JAX-WS RI + WSIT (the bundle was not yet named Metro at this time).

External links

• Metro official website
• WSIT official website