Web Services Basic

Introduction to Web Services

Web Services can convert your applications into Web-applications.

Web Services are published, found, and used through the Web.

What You Should Already Know

Before you continue, you should have a basic understanding of the following:

• HTML
• XML

If you want to study these subjects first, find the tutorials on our Home page.

What are Web Services?

• Web services are application components
• Web services communicate using open protocols
• Web services are self-contained and self-describing
• Web services can be discovered using UDDI
• Web services can be used by other applications
• XML is the basis for Web services

How Does it Work?

The basic Web services platform is XML + HTTP.

XML provides a language which can be used between different platforms and programming languages and still express complex messages and functions.

The HTTP protocol is the most used Internet protocol.

Web services platform elements:

• SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol)
• UDDI (Universal Description, Discovery and Integration)
• WSDL (Web Services Description Language)

We will explain these topics later in the tutorial.