webservices and datasets

[androoo]

Hi all

I have read both scott mitchells (4 guys) articles on why he doesnt
like to use datasets from webservices and I have some questions if
anyone has some experience in this.

How secure is my app if i pass a dataset from a webservice to my
application ?

What is the future for webservices and passing back data in .net2? Ive
some reason for passing collections back from a webservice, this is
alot of work for returning a few records, is there a better solution in
..net2 or any suggestions ?

Im thinking of having a website (mostly made up of wevservices on a sql
database ) that services many client websites, is this a bad idea ? Is
it scaleable ?

Thanks for any input

 

[hB]

With datasets security is not much of an issue, if you have SSL there
since your information is virtually hidden beside your consumer
(client).
But clients potentially be your inhouse users and may be out of your
organization.
With dataset, you most propably expose the schema of your database.

With datasets, xml schema in WSDL is dynamic, so at runtime if client
is not dotnetbased he has to parse difficult XML, its not a good
practise. Your service clients can be of any type.

WebServices are not for exposing data. They are highlevel interfaces of
the services your component / department / organization provides.

"webservices and passing back DATA in .net2" :s -> no future.
For returning data usually use XSD classes and then use those, and they
are usually generating Array of objects.
(Dont know if something special in .net2)

Bad Idea at first. But if its inhouse thing, that for instance if one
developer wants to view certain informative data he can use that, those
are inhouse exposed webservices.
For example in many bigger enterprises many depts or systems donot have
enough rights or tools to view data in the databases (db drivers not
installed).
I do not think its scaleable :/
And lo, In latest version of SQL server they have the facility to
expose the sqlserver stored procedure as a webservice. (expose things
like sp_cmd sp_exec.... give a cmd shell on websvc for your server )

Welcome.

 

[androoo]

Thanks for the reply hB really appreciated.

You say that "With datasets, xml schema in WSDL is dynamic, so at
runtime if client
is not dotnetbased he has to parse difficult XML, its not a good
practise. Your service clients can be of any type. "

The client will always be hosted on a webserver that supports .net so
its ok -- is this what you meant?

"WebServices are not for exposing data. They are highlevel interfaces
of the services your component / department / organization provides. "
Ok , i am new to webservices, so this is real important to me, I
thought webservices could be used for sharing data, maybe not hundreds
of records but at least some managed amounts of records , what do you
think ?

Thanks for your help !

 

[hB]

If webservice consumer is going to be dontet always! then dataset can
be used across.
Its not a good idea!
I already told you, that in what cases you might look to share the data
(for instance inhouse data exposure).