Introduction to Web Services tutorial part 1

Introduction to Web Services
Web Services can convert your applications into Web-applications.
Web Services are published, found, and used through the Web

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What You Should Already Know
Before you continue you should have a basic understanding of the following:
HTML
XML
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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

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.
The HTTP protocol is the most used Internet protocol.
XML provides a language which can be used between different platforms and programming languages and still express complex messages and functions.
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.
The Future of Web services
Don't expect too much, too soon.
The Web Services platform is a simple, interoperable, messaging framework. It still misses many important features like security and routing. But, these features will be available as soon as SOAP becomes more advanced.
Hopefully, Web services can make it much easier for applications to communicate
A few years ago Web services were not fast enough to be interesting.
Thanks to the major IT development the last few years, most people and companies have broadband connection and use the web more and more.
Interoperability has Highest Priority
When all major platforms could access the Web using Web browsers, different platforms could interact. For these platforms to work together, Web applications were developed.
Web-applications are simple applications run on the web. These are built around the Web browser standards and can mostly be used by any browser on any platform.
Web Services take Web-applications to the Next Level
Using Web services, your application can publish its function or message to the rest of the world.
Web services use XML to code and to decode data, and SOAP to transport it (using open protocols).
With Web services, your accounting department's Win 2k server's billing system can connect with your IT supplier's UNIX server.
Web Services have Two Types of Uses
Reusable application components.
There are things applications need very often. So why make these over and over again?
Web services can offer applications components like currency conversion, weather reports, or even language translation as services.
Ideally, there will be only one type of each application component, and anyone can use it in their application.
Connect existing software.
Web services help to solve the interoperability problem by giving different applications a way to link their data.
With Web services you can exchange data between different applications and different platforms.