webservice

What is Web Service?

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. The Web serivce consumers are able to invoke method calls on remote objects by using SOAP and HTTP over the Web. WebService is language independent and Web Services communicate by using standard web protocols and data formats, such as

• HTTP
• XML
• SOAP

Advantages of Web Service

Web Service messages are formatted as XML, a standard way for communication between two incompatible system. And this message is sent via HTTP, so that they can reach to any machine on the internet without being blocked by firewall.

Examples for Web Service

Weather Reporting: You can use Weather Reporting web service to display weather information in your personal website.

Stock Quote: You can display latest update of Share market with Stock Quote on your web site.

News Headline: You can display latest news update by using News Headline Web Service in your website.

In summary you can use any web service which is available to use. You can make your own web service and let others use it. Example you can make Free SMS Sending Service with footer with your advertisement, so whosoever use this service indirectly advertise your company... You can apply your ideas in N no. of ways to take advantage of it.

Frequently used word with web services

What is SOAP?

SOAP (simple object access protocol) is a remote function calls that invokes method and execute them on Remote machine and translate the object communication into XML format. In short, SOAP are way by which method calls are translate into XML format and sent via HTTP.

What is WSDL?
WSDL stands for Web Service Description Language, a standard by which a web service can tell clients what messages it accepts and which results it will return.

WSDL contains every detail regarding using web service and Method and Properties provided by web service and URLs from which those methods can be accessed and Data Types used.

What is UDDI?

UDDI allows you to find web services by connecting to a directory.

What is Discovery or .Disco Files?

Discovery files are used to group common services together on a web server. Discovery files .Disco and .VsDisco are XML based files that contains link in the form of URLs to resources that provides discovery information for a web service. Disco File contains URL for the WSDL, URL for the documentation and URL to which SOAP messages should be sent.