Web Services A new flavor of software technology that makes it
easier to integrate systems over the Internet or Internet protocol-based networks.
Web services rely on the following software standards.
XML (extensible markup language) A common method for describing
data, XML lets programmers write their own tags to identify information in a document
and put it into context. Industry groups are getting together to define their own
XML dialects. For example, the shoe industry might agree on one tag to represent
shoe size, another to represent shoe color and so on. soap (simple
object access
protocol) Describes how one application talks to a Web service and asks it to perform
a task and return an answer.
SOAP makes it possible to use Web services for transactions—say,
credit card authorization or checking inventory in real-time and placing an order.
UDDI (universal description, discovery and integration) A virtual
yellow pages for Web services that lets software discover what Web services are
available and how to hook up to them. Major software vendors are working together
to develop a public UDDI registry that will enable companies to find one another's
Web services over
the Internet.
WSDL (Web Services Description Language) If you think of UDDI as
a virtual yellow pages, WSDL is the little blurb associated with each entry that
describes what kind of work the Web service can do—say, that it can give you access
to a database of ZIP codes.