Industry essay: What are Web Services?

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Industry essay: What are Web Services?

Web services have been hyped over the past year to be the most

innovative improvement that has come to the Internet. It has been

adopted by many companies, and has reached the forefront of

applications development. So what is all the hype about?

Web services can be described as an application that can be deployed

or called over the Internet that allows applications to communicate

with each other- regardless of the language in which they are written

or which systems platform and operating system is being used. Each

service is a discrete unit of code, and performs a small set of given

tasks.

Typically, web services make use of standard web protocols to perform

its tasks- it usually follows an order: 1) find the web service

requested, 2) determine how the web service is called once it is

found, and 3) call the program or service requested. For the search

portion, UDDI (Universal Discovery, Description, and Integration) is

mainly used. It is a service that essentially is a directory of web

services, and UDDI helps the user find the web service or program for

which he is looking. WSDL (Web Service Definition Language) is most

often used to describe how the web service or program should be

called, and XML to communicate this. Finally, Simple Object Access

Protocol (SOAP) encodes the XML data sent and received, and shares the

data in messages over http.

The potential power of web services can be displayed in a number of

different ways. Web services are being used to integrate all sorts of

data- from local programs interfacing with each other across a local

area network, to large enterprise-level applications communicating

across the Internet. A few examples of how web services can be

utilized are listed below:

* A utility pole is damaged in a remote area of Massachusetts, and a

utility company has to come in and replace it. However, in order

to do this, the cable, telephone, and electric utility companies

have to act in a certain order in order for the damaged pole to be

removed. Web services can be used to determine the status of the

actions taken by the individual companies, since the order of the

actions is based on which utility owns the pole.

* A company wants to measure how much a particular product it has

sold, which customers bought how much of the product, when the

nex...

... middle of paper ...

...partners." In other words, web services

allow the bounds on software integration to be greatly expanded. It is

now a great selling point for companies, particularly those that

develop software. And at first, those companies that develop web

services will benefit, but the success will eventually give way to

those businesses that leverage web services in the most useful manner.

INDEX

Brown, Bob, in an interview with Zimon, Gene (CIO and senior

vice-president of Nstar energy company), Utility IT Exec To Explore

Power of Web Services, Network World, December 2, 2002

McAllister, Neil, Service Economy: Will Web Services Be the Savior of

the Industry? New Artchitect, April 18, 2002

http://www.fatalexception.org/articles/2002/20020418.html

Microsoft Corporation, What Are Web Services?, May 15, 2003

http://www.microsoft.com/net/basics/webservices.asp

Saxby, Barbara Angius, Web Services: A Floor Wax or Dessert Topping?,

March 7, 2002

http://www.goto-silicon-valley.com/articles/barbara-angius-saxby/web_services.pdf

Sholler, Daniel, METAReport: What Are Web Services, Anyway?,

Datamation, January 16, 2002

http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/it_res/article.php/955861

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