Webservices

Web services enable the exchange data between different applications and
different platforms.
(Web services are web-based enterprise applications that use open, XMLbased standards and transport protocols to exchange data with calling
clients)
Web services can offer application-components like
Currency conversion
Weather reports
Language translation as services

Weather Example

Weather Example
Send request with zip code as parameter
Get response -- expected weather description

Why web service?

Web services are platform-independent and language-independent, and that
is since the web services use standard XML languages.
Most Web services use HTTP for transmitting messages, this is a major
advantage if you want to build an Internet-scale application.
Disadvantages
Overhead- transmitting all the data in XML is obviously not as efficient as
using a proprietary binary code.

WebServices Components
WSDL Web-services Description Language.
SOAP XML-based protocol to let applications exchange information. (Simple
Object Access Protocol)
UDDI directory service where companies can register and search for Web
services. (not commonly in used). (Universal Description, Discovery and Integration)
XML related XML, XSD, XSLT.

Overview

There are multiple policy aggregators and portals that are single stop shop
for selling and servicing policies.
Any insurance company has a business plan to partner with these policy
aggregators to sell policies off the aggregator portals.
For the same, a set of business services will need to be exposed for external
systems to consume and vice versa.

Example
An insurance company wish to expose these Web-Services to D2C channel, BPO
Channel & Partner Portal for contact creation, getting premiums, creating proposals
and issuing policies for each implemented product through intranet environment.
The Architecture is given as follow:

The service Calls will be made from D2C, BPO, Patner

portals: