Putting labs online with Web services

• Published in: IT professional Vol. 8; no. 2; pp. 27 - 34
• Main Authors: Yuhong Yan, Yong Liang, Xinge Du, Saliah-Hassane, Hamadou, Ghorbani, A.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Washington IEEE 01-03-2006; IEEE Computer Society
• Subjects: Application software; Communication networks; Communication standards; Communication system control; Computer programs; Control equipment; Engineering education; Experiments; Information technology; Instruments; Internet service providers; Interoperability; Laboratories; Learning; On-line systems; Online; Online instruction; online laboratories; Protocols; Remote computing; Remote control; remote laboratories; Service oriented architecture; Software; Students; Time factors; virtual laboratories; Web services; Wrapping
• ISSN: 1520-9202; 1941-045X
• DOI: 10.1109/MITP.2006.45

This paper describes an online experiment system that is based on Web services designed to support interoperable, machine-to-machine interaction over a network, and can also integrate heterogeneous resources. A service-oriented architecture was devised for online experiment systems, enabled by Web service protocols, and a methodology for wrapping the operations of the instruments into Web services. Although these methods aren't suitable for time-critical missions or applications that need real-time control, they do work for controlling standard commercial instruments over low-speed or unreliable communication networks. Using this framework, an online experiment system for students can be created that incorporates a great variety of instruments and that users can access without installing special software