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Web service requirements

A Web service that makes content from one Web site available to another must satisfy a number of requirements. The Content Delivery Web service is a thin layer on top of the specific Content Delivery APIs for JSP and ASP.NET, intended to specifically satisfy these requirements.

Ease of integration
The person managing the Web site to which you want to add your content should not have to learn your CMS in order to integrate your content on their Web site, and would prefer a interface to the content that follows accepted standards. The minimal Content Delivery Web service API reduces interaction with the Storage Layer through the OData-compliant Web service. OData, short for the Open Data Protocol, is a standard Web protocol for querying and updating data. For more information, refer to http://www.odata.org.
Up-to-date content
Any change to a piece of content on your Web site should immediately cause the same piece of content to be updated on other sites. For example, if your hotel room has a 20% discount for an hour, this discount should be immediately visible wherever the content is displayed. The integrating Web site calls the Content Delivery Web service at visit time to ensure that your content is up to date.
Customizable look & feel
The integrating Web site should be able to apply its own house styles to your content to make it conform to its look & feel. For example, if your piece of content has a blue background on your site, the integrator should be able to give it a yellow background on his or her own site. The Content Delivery Web service can return XML, to which an XSLT stylesheet can be applied to create a custom look & feel. The Web service can also return data in JSON format.