services|web|xml| Microsoft
What are XML Web services?
Published:may 2001
Key Points
XML Web services allow applications to share data.
XML Web Services can be called across platforms and operating systems and regardless of programming language.
. NET is Microsoft ' s platform for XML Web services.
The XML Revolution
Although deceptively simple, XML was turning the way we build and use software inside out. The Web revolutionized how users talk to applications. The XML is revolutionizing how applications talk to the other applications--or more broadly, how computers talk to the other computers --by providing a universal data format that lets data is easily adapted or transformed. xml-based standards, which include SOAP and UDDI, comprise the open methodology for application-to-application On known as XML Web services.
XML Web services:a Universal Language
XML Web services allow applications to communicate regardless of operating system or programming via the Internet . They can be implemented to any platform and are defined through public standards organizations as the. And with XML Web services, not only can applications share data, but they can also invoke capabilities to other Applicat Ions without regard to how applications were built. Sharing data through XML allows them to is independent the all other while simultaneously giving them the ability to loose Ly link themselves into the A collaborating group that performs a particular task.
Web sites vs. XML Web Services
Web sites are about presenting information to a user:they are the communication of for vehicle to servers to users. XML Web Services, on the "other hand," offer a direct means for applications to interact with other applications. Applications hosted internally, as as and on remote systems, can communicate via the Internet by using XML and SOAP Messa Ges.
How XML Web Services Connect Applications
Here's a simple example:say your have an inventory system. If you don ' t connect it to anything else, it's not very valuable. You can track inventory, but it's a lot of work, and what that one system can does all by the itself is limited. Every item you sell needs to is entered not only into your inventory system, but also-separately into your accounting EM, and your customer account records. Then you are need to remember to the order more of this item from the your suppliers next time for you. The cost/benefit ratio is largely unappealing, because the gains from the system are close to the overhead of using It.
However, if you connect the your inventory system to your accounting system with XML, it gets more interesting. Now, whenever/sell something, the implications for your inventory and your cash flow can is tracked in one step . If you go further, and connect your warehouse management system, Customer ordering system, supplier ordering, systems, and Your shipping company with XML, suddenly that inventory management system be worth a lot:you can do end-to-end management of your business while dealing with each transaction only once, instead of once of the for every system it affects. A lot less work, and a lot less room for errors.
These connections can is made easily using XML Web services. XML WEB services allow the applications to share information via the Internet, regardless of the operating system or back- End software that the application is using.
. NET is about XML Web Services
Microsoft ' s XML Web Services platform is. NET. The "a" of XML Web services Microsoft is building is codenamed "HailStorm".
