What Is a Web Service?
So what is a Web service? You probably have some ideas based on the parallels I have drawn with the genesis of the World Wide Web. XML Web services are an open way to perform standards-based remote-procedure calls over standard Internet protocols. Wow—that's quite a mouthful. I am sure more than one person will argue with that definition because it is difficult to encapsulate the idea of something as large as XML Web services into a single sentence.
So let's examine more closely what a Web service is. XML Web services are not Web pages. They are intended to be created and consumed by applications, not users. Instead of designing the look, you define the schema. The schema is what is important in a Web service.
Several standards ...
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