-Web
Service is an application that is designed to interact directly with
other applications over the internet. In simple sense, Web Services are
means for interacting with objects over the Internet.
–A web service is a collection of open protocols and standards used
for exchanging data between applications or systems.
-Software
applications written in various programming languages and running on
various platforms can use web services to exchange data over computer
networks like the Internet in a manner similar to inter-process
communication on a single computer.
-The
Web service consumers are able to invoke method calls on remote objects
by using SOAP and HTTP over the Web. Web Service is language independent
and Web Services communicate by using standard web protocols and data formats, such as
- HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol)
- XML (Extensible Markup Language)
- SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol)
- UDDI (Universal Description, Discovery and Integration)
- WSDL (Web Services Description Language)
It works somewhat like this:
- The client program bundles the account registration information into a SOAP message.
- This SOAP message is sent to the Web Service as the body of an HTTP POST request.
- The Web Service unpacks the SOAP request and converts it into a command that the application can understand.
- The application processes the information as required and responds with a new unique account number for that customer.
- Next, the Web Service packages up the response into another SOAP
message, which it sends back to the client program in response to its
HTTP request. - The client program unpacks the SOAP message to obtain the results of the account registration process.