Web Service

a brief introduction
Definition
 W3C: A web service is "a software system designed to support
interoperable machine-to-machine interaction over a network.

Service
Service Provider Requester

Web service Internet

SOAP Internet
WSDL XML / HTTP
Interface Service
Requester

Web services use XML to code and to decode data, and SOAP to transport it
How it works
 Can be accessed over a network and
executed on a remote system hosting
the requested services.
 using HTTP with an XML serialization
Impact
 Converts your application into a Web-
application, which can publish its
function or message to the rest of the
world
 Can be used for SOA
 Make the applications inter-operable
Styles of Use
 RPC - implemented by mapping
services directly to language-specific
functions or method calls
 SOA - where the basic unit of
communication is a message, rather
than an operation.
 REST - the focus is on interacting
with stateful resources, rather than
messages or operations.
Design methodologies
 Simpler approach using the "bottom up
method" first writes the implementing class in
a programming language, and then uses a
WSDL generating tool to expose its methods as
a web service.
 A developer using the "top down method" first
writes the WSDL document and then uses a
code generating tool to produce the class
skeleton, which she later completes. This way
is more difficult but produces cleaner designs
What you should know?
 HTML
 XML
 Server side programming/scripting
What is SOAP?
 stands for Simple Object Access Protocol
 A protocol for accessing a Web Service
 a format for sending messages
 designed to communicate via Internet
 platform independent
 language independent
 based on XML
 simple and extensible
 allows you to get around firewalls
 a W3C standard
What is WSDL?
 an XML-based language for locating and
describing Web services.
 stands for Web Services Description
Language
 based on XML
 used to describe Web services
 used to locate Web services
 a W3C standard
What is UDDI?
 stands for Universal Description, Discovery
and Integration
 a directory service where companies can
register and search for Web services.
 directory for storing information about web
services
 a directory of web service interfaces
described by WSDL
 communicates via SOAP
 built into the Microsoft .NET platform
Examples
 Currency conversion
 Weather Reports
 Translation services