
Understanding Web Services- XML, WSDL, SOAP and UDDI
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The two styles map well to synchronous/asynchronous messaging paradigms
The Technology of Web Services
Programs that interact with one another over the Web must be able to find one another, discover
information allowing them to interconnect, figure out what the expected interaction patterns are—
a simple request/reply or more complicated process flow?—and negotiate such qualities of service
as security, reliable messaging, and transactional composition. Some of these qualities of service
are covered in existing technologies and proposed standards, but others are not. In general, the
Web services community is working to meet all these requirements, but it's an evolutionary
process, much like the Web itself has been. Web services infrastructure and standards are being
designed and developed from the ground up to be extensible, such as XML and HTML before
them, so that whatever is introduced in the short term can continue to be used as new standards
and technologies emerge.
Standards define how Web services are described, discovered, and communicate with
one another
The New Silver Bullet?
Web services are sometimes portrayed as "silver-
bullet" solutions to contemporary
computing problems, filling the role previously played by the original Web, relatio
databases, fourth-
generation languages, and artificial intelligence. Unfortunately, Web
services by themselves can't solve much. Web services are a new layer—
doing things—but are not a fundamental change that replaces the need for existi
computing infrastructure. This new layer of technology performs a new function—
way of working—
but, most importantly, provides an integration mechanism defined at a
higher level of abstraction.
Web services are important because they are capable of
bridging technology domains,
not because they replace any existing technology. You could say that newer languages,
such as Visual Basic, C#, C/C++ and Java—
replace older languages, such as COBOL
and FORTRAN, although a lot of programs in those languages a
Web-
services mappings for them. Web services, like Web servers, are complementary
to, not in conflict with, existing applications, programs, and databases. Application
development continues to require Java, VB, and C#. All that's ne
transforming data in and out of programs and applications, using standard XML data
formats and protocols to reach a new level of interoperability and integration.
Developers may have to take Web services into account when designing and develo
new programs and databases, but those programs and databases will still be required
behind Web services wrappers. Web services are not executable things in and of
themselves; they rely on executable programs written using programming languages and
scr
ipts. Web services define a powerful layer of abstraction that can be used to
accomplish program-to-
program interaction, using existing Web infrastructure, but they
are nothing without a supporting infrastructure.
Web services require several related XML-based technologies to transport and to transform data
into and out of programs and databases.
Web services require the use of several related XML-based technologies