Untangling The Language Of Web Services

People oftentimes look to software programs to help out with hundreds of different tasks having to do with the Internet. A lot of this software can be found online. Any software that can be found online that uses a standard XML messaging system can be a Web service. XML is the foundation of Web service, and is the common language for providing remote procedure calls that make the messaging system work. Web services can run things like package tracking, weather reports, traffic reports, and stock market updates on the Internet. These reports are good examples of Web services.

A Web service is used mainly as a way for Internet users to communicate with each other without too much IT system information being exposed. They share business data, processes, and logic across a network. The applications in use communicate and interact, not so much the users. Web services use many technologies that have to work together with ever changing standards to provide security and manageability to users, and they are a way to integrate Web based applications using four important language standards. These are XML, SOAP, WSDL, and UDDI.

XML allows designers to create customized tags, which enables the transmission and interpretation of data between the applications being used. XML is short for Extensible Markup Language, and is used to tag the data. SOAP, or Simple Object Access Protocol, is used to encode information in service requests and response messages before they are sent over the network. SOAP is used to transfer the data over the network between the applications. WSDL, or Web Services Descriptive Language, describes a services capabilities in the form of groups of communication endpoints that can exchange messages that are needed. So basically, UDDI is used to describe the services available, and finally, UDDI, short for Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration, is an Internet based directory that businesses use to enable other businesses to find them. UDDI is used to list what services are available, and from where.

Security when using Web services has become a very important topic, because with the applications interacting, not the people, things like data authentication, security, and privacy must be secured by these systems. Some of the ways to achieve such security is by using data encryption, digital signatures, and Security Assertion Markup Language, or SAML. Although the language used for Web Services can be overwhelming for newcomers to the subject, fear not: all the right language is in all the right hands.

By: Kelly Renaul

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