Developing an XML Web Service

Abstract

XML Web services allow you to perform remote procedure calls over the Internet. If you work for a large organization, the organization’s information is likely held on servers in scattered locations. Using XML Web services, a program running in a remote location can invoke, for example, an XML Web service installed at headquarters to obtain centrally held information. Another program can provide a central XML Web service with operating details to be merged into the overall figures, and a third program can send a purchase order directly to a supplier’s public XML Web service, which enters the incoming order immediately into its order processing system. This new technology greatly simplifies communication across organizational divisions and among different organizations. By virtue of their use of XML to represent data of all types—including objects—XML Web services can communicate across platforms and through firewalls.