Introduction to Web Service:-
What is Web Service?
Or other way we can define Web Services:-
A "web service is the communication platform between two different or same platform applications that allows to use their web method."
In the preceding definition you observed that I used the two main points in the definition of web service; they are different or same platform application and the second is web method. so let us learn some basic about it .
What does different or same application and platform mean:- It means that I can create a web service in any language, such as Java or other languages and that the language web service can be used in a .Net based application and also a .Net web service or in another application to exchange the information.
What does web method mean:- The method in web services always start with [webMethod] attributes, it means that it is a web method that is accessible anywhere, the same as my web application.
For better understand you can see following diagram:-
Examples for Web Service:-
Finally say, we can any use any web service which is available to use. We can make our own web service and let others use it. Example we can make Free SMS Sending Service with footer with our advertisement, so whosoever use this service indirectly advertise our company. We can apply our ideas in N number of ways to take advantage of it.
Some important terms used with web services:-
- Web Service is an application that is designed to interact directly with other applications over the internet.
- In simple sense, Web Services are means for interacting with objects over the Internet.
- The Web serivce consumers are able to invoke method calls on remote objects by using SOAP and HTTP over the Web. WebService is language independent and Web Services communicate by using standard web protocols and data formats, such as
- HTTP
- XML
- SOAP
A "web service is the communication platform between two different or same platform applications that allows to use their web method."
In the preceding definition you observed that I used the two main points in the definition of web service; they are different or same platform application and the second is web method. so let us learn some basic about it .
What does different or same application and platform mean:- It means that I can create a web service in any language, such as Java or other languages and that the language web service can be used in a .Net based application and also a .Net web service or in another application to exchange the information.
What does web method mean:- The method in web services always start with [webMethod] attributes, it means that it is a web method that is accessible anywhere, the same as my web application.
For better understand you can see following diagram:-
Examples for Web Service:-
- News Headline:- You can display latest news update by using News Headline Web Service in your website.
- Stock Quote:- You can display latest update of Share market with Stock Quote on your web site.
- Weather Reporting:- You can use Weather Reporting web service to display weather information in your personal website.
Finally say, we can any use any web service which is available to use. We can make our own web service and let others use it. Example we can make Free SMS Sending Service with footer with our advertisement, so whosoever use this service indirectly advertise our company. We can apply our ideas in N number of ways to take advantage of it.
Some important terms used with web services:-
- What is SOAP? SOAP (simple object access protocol) is a remote function calls that invokes method and execute them on Remote machine and translate the object communication into XML format. In short, SOAP are way by which method calls are translate into XML format and sent via HTTP.
- What is WSDL? WSDL stands for Web Service Description Language, a standard by which a web service can tell clients what messages it accepts and which results it will return. WSDL contains every detail regarding using web service and Method and Properties provided by web service and URLs from which those methods can be accessed and Data Types used.
- What is UDDI? UDDI allows you to find web services by connecting to a directory.
- What is Discovery or .Disco Files? Discovery files are used to group common services together on a web server. Discovery files .Disco and .VsDisco are XML based files that contains link in the form of URLs to resources that provides discovery information for a web service. Disco File contains URL for the WSDL, URL for the documentation and URL to which SOAP messages should be sent.
- Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP):- Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is the protocl widely used by web services to send and receive messages.
- Web Services have .asmx extension:- Web Services have .asmx extension. For this reason web services are also often called as ASMX web services.