Hi,
I am new to web services and have the following requirement.

I have a java process running on a server (J2SE and NOT J2EE). The server component should be able to provide service to multiple clients. The client side is currently in java but it would be nice if non-java clients can access the server component.

The client queues messages/requests with the server.
The server can send multiple messages in response as it processes the client request.
The communication does not necessarily follow a request-response model.
All the messaging is asynchronous
The client and server components should be able to convert the messages into java beans without doing any message parsing.
Interoperability, performance, flexibility and ease of use are the priorities.

I have been reading about the following technologies :
Web Services
JAX_RPC
JAXM
JMS

I am not sure which one is the best fit for my requirement. Any feedback or recommendation would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance

I think you are pretty much talking about the web services with SOA arhitecture there. Specially if you want a non java client to communicate with your server. IN terms of queuing you pretty much are looking at JMS behind your webservices.

Check out the SOA details weather to use webservices or not is your choice but it will be the easiest.

Cheers

I am trying to use Apache Axis as the web services implementation. Is it possible in web services for the service (server component) to send multiple messages in response to a client request/message? Does that mean i have to run a server like component on the client side?

Thanks in advance
Prasad

Yes, you need some kind of a WS container on the client side to handle async replies.