Industry essay: What are Web Services? -- Computer Science

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... ...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