Web Services 1.0
Overview
Web Services refers to a system of communication for diverse applications talking over the World Wide Web. By using Web services, the application can publish its function or message to the rest of the world.
Typical components of a web service are:
- Extensible Markup Language (XML) constituting the data to be exchanged.
- World Wide Web’s Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP) constituting the network over which data is to be exchanged.
- Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) constituting the message protocol so applications understand one another.
SOAP is a simple XML-based communication protocol to let applications exchange information over HTTP. It is used to accomplish communication between diverse applications independent of the platform, technology, and programming languages. SOAP is a World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) standard.
Web Services Description Language (WSDL) is an XML document that describes a web service. It can also be defined as a standard to describe an interface for exchanging information using the SOAP protocol. This interface describes the location of the SOAP service, nature of messages exchanged, in addition to their structure, elements, and characteristics like null allowed, minimum occurrences, and so on.
Administration
Which version of Web Services do I have?
, Learning About Web Services Technologies
To learn more about these technologies please refer to the table below:
| Technology | Information / Tutorial URL |
|---|---|
| XML | www.w3schools.com/xml/xml_whatis.asp |
| SOAP | www.w3schools.com/xml/xml_soap.asp |
| WSDL | www.w3schools.com/xml/xml_wsdl.asp |
| W3C | www.w3c.org |
