A Web Service exposes a number of methods to provide functions that can be used by one or more applications, regardless of the programming languages, operating systems, and hardware platforms used to develop them. The methods that provide such function are called Web Methods. The functions used by a Web Service can be accesses by applications using Internet standards, such as Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP). SOAP is a protocol that uses eXtensible Markup Language (XML) to describe data and HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) to transmit application data. An application that uses a Web service is called a Web service client.

Web Services bring required service into your application from the Internet in the similar way that browsers bring it to the end users. The .Net framework introduces Web Services as an integral part of the architecture, making it very easy to create and consume these services with minimal amounts of code written. In fact, if you read Microsofts documentation, Web Services are featured as the new component architecture in the distributed age where not only Internet exposure is handled through them but also common reusable business and application services.

The .Net framework abstracts most of the internal logic that handles the remoting details of method calls over the wire and Visual Studio .Net builds support for Web Services directly into the development environment. It is as simple to call a remote method as it is to call a local method.

Web Services mission is to provide a Remote Procedure Call (RPC) interface for client applications to call class methods on the server side. Actually, the handling interface on the server need not be a class, but in the case of .Net and COM before it classes are typically used as the implementing entity. The idea is that in order to create a Web Service, you create class methods with standard input and output parameters and you then mark those classes and the specific methods as exposable over the Net.

Web Services are meant to expose functionality of a server to other applications. The "client" applications in this case may be a Fat Client Windows app, a Fat Server Web application that runs a standard Web backend such as ASP, Cold Fusion, Web Connection etc., a browser based client application using script code, or even Java applet running in a browser on a Unix machine. As long as a client application has support for the Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) it can call the remote Web Service and return data for it, assuming the user is authorized.

Web Services Features

1. Interoperability: Enables applications developed using different languages and running on heterogeneous platforms to communicate.

2. Dynamic Integration: Enables applications to dynamically locate and integrate with one another to provide enterprise solutions

3. Industry Standards: Enables applications to communicate with each other using widely accepted industry standards, such as XML, SOAP, WSDL and UDDI.

4. Security: Enables applications to communicate with each other in a secure environment by using XML signature and XML encryption. XML signature and encryption are security mechanisms to maintain the integrity of the data that is transferred over the internet.

There are various roles involved in implementing a Web Service. These roles are responsible for performing specific functionalities during the Web service are:

• Service Provider

• Service Broker

• Service Client

Service Provider

A service provider is responsible for providing the software components that are published as Web services. The software components can be simple classes or complex applications written in some programming language. These software components implement the Web Service functionality. A service provider describes information of the Web Service using an interface. The interface specifies information, such as:

• Service methods that are invoked by a Client

• URL that the client needs to use to access the service.

• Network protocol required to access the Web Service.

Service Broker

The interface defined by the service provider is published in a centralized service registry called a service broker. The service broker allows the Web Clients to search the registry for information about published Web Services. The client and the Web service locate each other using service broker.

Service Client

A service client is the potential client of the service providers Web Service, whose information is made available by the service broker. A service client, after locating the Web Service in the service registry, invokes the services implemented by the Web Service. Locating a Web Service in the service registry and invoking its methods is known as the Web Service binding operation. A service client can be a simple Web application or another Web service accessing the published Web Services.

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