Performance impact of Web service migration in embedded environments

The benefits provided by Web service protocols are well recognized. Deployments to date, however, have concentrated on new applications, and existing Web-based applications. A host of legacy applications and protocols continue to exist in their native forms, outdated, yet entrenched due to large installed bases. This paper details our observations in integrating a Web service infrastructure into the simple network management protocol (SNMP). SNMP has been in use for over a decade and a half, predominantly in network equipment embedded systems. Our Web service-based approach allows us to enhance our existing application with XML/SOAP interoperability, SSL/TLS security, and the potential to migrate both application and protocol layers to encompass future extensions and Web browser accessibility. The difficulty with SNMP, and many other legacy networking protocols, is that much of the extensive installed base is hosted on limited capability, legacy hardware. While the benefits of our scheme are quite tangible, the performance impact of adding these features is not well known. We examine two approaches, an integrated solution using a light-weight HTTP/SOAP stack, as well as a standard Java Web server implementation. Our tests reveal unanticipated performance results through both the integrated and proxy methods. We discuss the impact of these anomalies on the viability of our approach and address the broad issue of migrating Web services to legacy embedded architectures.