Visual Studio® 2008 ALL-IN-ONE DESK REFERENCE FOR DUMMIES®

Chapter V.6. Exploring Web Services

In This Chapter

A Web service is a kind of Web application. Unlike regular Web applications, however, a Web service has no user interface. Generally, Web services aren't intended to be accessed by end users directly. Rather, Web services are consumed by other applications. For example, a Web service that returns the current temperature for a given city could be called by — or consumed by — a town's Web page.

Web services have two basic uses:

• Interface between systems — Many different kinds of systems run on different hardware and platforms. Trying to write software that allows all these disparate systems to talk to each other has been challenging. Many of the interfaces quickly become brittle: That is, any small change in the interface makes communication difficult, unreliable, or impossible. Web services use standards that overcome the difficulties of creating system interfaces.

• Reusable components — Rather than copy and paste code, or deal with distributing components, you can make the features of your code available as a Web service.

Don't be fooled by the term Web service. It's so called because it uses the technologies of the Web: namely, HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) and eXtensible Markup Language (XML). However, you aren't restricted to publishing your Web services over the Internet. Many companies use Web services within their companies. For example, your public relations department can publish its press releases via a Web service method ...