Web Services: A Manager's Guide

Chapter 2. Web Services Basics

If you ask five people to define Web services, you'll probably get at least six answers. Some people use the term “Web services” to describe applications that communicate with Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP). (SOAP is an XML messaging protocol. We'll discuss it in detail in Chapter 3.) Other folks use the term to describe only the SOAP interface. Still other people vehemently object to the idea of constraining the definition to a specific technology such as SOAP. Some people use the term to describe any application that communicates over the Internet. Other people use the term to describe any Web-based application. Some people view Web services as anything that's accessible over the Web. And some people ...