XML Web Service is a programmable entity that provides special functional elements, such as application logic, and can use ubiquitous Internet standards such as XML and HTTP to access many potentially different systems. XML Web Services rely on the wide acceptance of XML and other Internet standards to use them to create infrastructure that supports application interoperability, resolving many problems that previously hindered interoperability.
XML Web Services can be used in a single application or by many applications on the Internet. Because an XML Web Service can be accessed through a standard interface, it allows multiple different systems to collaborate for a single network computing.
XML Web Services do not pursue code portability, but provide a feasible solution to enhance data and system interoperability. XML Web Services use XML-based messages as a basic data communication method and build bridges between systems using different component models, operating systems, and programming languages. Developers can use the same method as when using components to create a distributed application to create an application that can assemble XML Web Services from different sources.
One of the core features of XML Web Services is the high abstraction between implementation and use of services. By using XML-based messages as a mechanism to create and access services, XML Web Service customers and XML Web Service Providers, apart from the input, output, and address, you do not need to know each other.
XML Web Services can usher in a new era of distributed application development. There is no longer a battle between object models or a beauty contest between program languages. When systems are tightly coupled with proprietary infrastructure, this is at the cost of compromising application interoperability. XML Web Services provide interoperability at a new level, completely denying the competition between reverse systems. As a revolutionary advance in the Internet, XML Web Services will become the basic structure for connecting all computers.
Simple Service
The most basic solution for implementing XML Web Services is to provide some basic functional modules for customers to use. For example, the challenge for an e-commerce application is to calculate the charges for different freight methods. Such applications need to obtain the current transportation cost form from each freight company in these calculations.
Applications can use standard transmission protocols such as HTTP to send a simple XML-based message to the XML Web Service that calculates freight costs over the Internet. This message may provide the weight and size of the package, the shipping point and the receiving point, and other parameters such as the service level. The shipper's XML Web Service then uses the latest price list to calculate the shipping cost, and uses a simple XML-based response message to return this number to call the application, to calculate the customer's total cost.
Application Integration
You can use XML Web Services to integrate existing applications that appear completely different in an integrated manner. Each department of most companies has customized software to generate a series of useful but isolated data islands and business logic. Given the changing environment of each application and the changing nature of technology, it is imperative to create a collection of functions from these applications.
Using XML Web Services, you may expose the data and functions of existing applications as an XML Web Service. Then you can create an integrated application and use the XML Web Service set to enhance interoperability between the components of the application.
Workflow Solution
The XML Web Service provides an extremely powerful mechanism for applications to create end-to-end workflow solutions. Such a solution is suitable for long-term business-to-business transactions.
The BizTalk framework provides an additional protocol layer that defines mechanisms for identifying and Publishing messages, defines their lifecycles, and encapsulates them (usually with attachments ), securely deliver them to the destination and ensure the security of authentication, integrity, and confidential content.
Microsoft BizTalk Server provides infrastructure and tools for routing, transformation, and record infrastructure for rule-based business documents. This infrastructure enables companies to integrate, manage, and automate business processing using exchange business documents (such as procurement orders and invoices) from their internal or other organizations.
BizTalk Orchestration is a technology that includes the BizTalk Server used to define the status of a single XML Web Service and the composition of XML Web Services used to build multi-part business processing.
From: China IT lab
