Web Service Components

There are three major web service components.

1. SOAP
2. WSDL
3. UDDI

SOAP

• SOAP is an acronym for Simple Object Access Protocol.
• SOAP is a XML-based protocol for accessing web services.
• SOAP is a W3C recommendation for communication between applications.
• SOAP is XML based, so it is platform independent and language independent. In other words, it can be used with Java, .Net or PHP language on any platform.

WSDL

• WSDL is an acronym for Web Services Description Language.
• WSDL is a xml document containing information about web services such as method name, method parameter and how to access it.
• WSDL is a part of UDDI. It acts as a interface between web service applications.
• WSDL is pronounced as wiz-dull.

UDDI

• UDDI is an acronym for Universal Description, Discovery and Integration.
• UDDI is a XML based framework for describing, discovering and integrating web services.
• UDDI is a directory of web service interfaces described by WSDL, containing information about web services.

Types of Web Services

There are mainly two types of web services.

1. SOAP web services.
2. RESTful web services.

What is Web Service

A Web Service can be defined by following ways:

• is a client server application or application component for communication.
• method of communication between two devices over network.
• is a software system for interoperable machine to machine communication.
• is a collection of standards or protocols for exchanging information between two devices or application.

Let's understand it by the figure given below:

As you can see in the figure, java, .net or PHP applications can communicate with other applications through web service over the network. For example, java application can interact with Java, .Net and PHP applications. So web service is a language independent way of communication.

RESTful Web Services

REST stands for REpresentational State Transfer.

REST is an architectural style not a protocol.

Advantages of RESTful Web Services

Fast: RESTful Web Services are fast because there is no strict specification like SOAP. It consumes less bandwidth and resource.

Language and Platform independent: RESTful web services can be written in any programming language and executed in any platform.

Can use SOAP: RESTful web services can use SOAP web services as the implementation.

Permits different data format: RESTful web service permits different data format such as Plain Text, HTML, XML and JSON.

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