What are XML Web Services?

XML is used for many things today, but not just for data storage. If you need to exchange data between applications running on different platforms, XML Web Services provide a good way for this integration.

An XML Web Service exposes functionality through standard Internet protocols. Communication typically uses:

• HTTP
• XML
• SOAP.

I wrote about SOAP earlier. A client sends a request to the service, and the service returns an XML response.

Because XML is platform independent, applications written in different programming languages can communicate with each other.

XML Web Services are becoming increasingly common for business-to-business integration and distributed applications.

For developers familiar with SOAP, a Web Service can be viewed as an application endpoint that processes SOAP requests and returns SOAP responses.