title: CXF and standalone web services
body: <p>I'm currently writing a few applications that contain web service clients and servers, as complete standalone applications, eg without any <strike>web</strike> application server / servlet engine. I'm using plain Java 6, and for the "server" part I'm using the sun HttpServer. Working like a charm.</p>
  
  <p>(actually I am using CXF, but only for their wsdl2java tool, which is more flexible than the one that ships with Java 6).</p>
  
  <p>I've been wondering now if there is any benefit for me to look at frameworks like CXF. Strangely enough, I can't find any information on the CXF web site on such a scenario, they just seem to blindly assume that everybody uses an applications server (and worse, maven).</p>
  
  <p>One of the reasons why I'm looking at CXF is that in the near future I expect that I need to support AIX as well, and there I can't use:</p>
  
  <pre><code>reqcontext.put(BindingProviderProperties.CONNECT_TIMEOUT, connect_timeout);
  reqcontext.put(BindingProviderProperties.REQUEST_TIMEOUT, request_timeout);
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>CXF has this thing called an HTTPClientPolicy which would nicely fit the bill.</p>
  
  <p>Does anybody have any links to articles discussing using CXF without any application server / servlet engine? Are there any other benefits that CXF could give me over the current Java 6 JAX-WS implementation?</p>
  
  <p>Maarten</p>