Web services make business easy

Analysts believe that web services are fast becoming the main way in which business processes are exposed and accessed in the enterprise. Web services refer to a family of technologies that aim to universally standardise the way applications (and parts of businesses) talk to one another: connecting systems, business partners, and customers cost-effectively, via the Web. These services include technology like Extensible Markup Language (XML), Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), Web Services Description Language (WSDL), and the Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration (UDDI) protocol. XML and SOAP are two of the technologies gathering widespread support and use in industry. XML’s primary purpose is to facilitate the sharing of structured text and information (including documents) across the Internet. Its chief strength is that it is compatible with web and internet protocols. SOAP is based on XML and can also run on top of all Internet protocols. It is mainly used for exchanging messages between computer software.