How you define Web Services?

[Vikrama Sanjeeva]

Hi guyz,
It is interesting to see that Web Services is a vast area.Therefore defining such terms are bit tedious then others.So if someone(layman-no knowledge of CS) ask What is Web Services? Then how could you define? Mr.Prasad please give some brief definition.
Bye,
Viki.
[ January 15, 2003: Message edited by: Vikrama Sanjeeva ]

[Ritu Kama]

I think to answer it in a layman words, Web Services can be described as "Services provided on Internet". It sounds like really layman but that is the basics.
The services can be of different types depending upon the service provider and users. Also Web services can be offered externally on the Web to general public users or can be internally available for intranet. Also it is important to understand that users are not necessarily "humans". The user of a webservice can be another webservice itself.
There could be a cost associated to providing web service. That's why Web services security becomes quite important. We would want to know who used the service and Was user authorised to use it.

[Stanley Tan]

It's a way to expose functionality over the Internet. It's like calling a regular method, but the code (functionality) resides somewhere on the Internet. There is so much great potential for this. Just imagine before when you wrote DLLs. You had to distribute that DLL to your client programmers. Everytime a change is made, you must redistribute your DLL. With Web services, that no longer is a problem because you expose functionality in a single-central location over the Internet.
It's also a great way of doing business as companies can expose to other companies their Web services and transact (automatically) over the Internet without human intervention.

[Vikrama Sanjeeva]

Hi,

Originally posted by Stanley Tan:
With Web services, that no longer is a problem because you expose functionality in a single-central location over the Internet.
It's also a great way of doing business as companies can expose to other companies their Web services and transact (automatically) over the Internet without human intervention.

It seems that WS is heading back to Centralized Computing.
Bye,
Viki.

[Rasika Chitnis]

Stanley, after reading your response, I am wondering, how is this different than a RMI or EJB invocation ? Isn't EJB or a Remote Object fit your definition of providing services over Internet ?
thanks in advance

[Vikrama Sanjeeva]

Hi,

Originally posted by Rasika Chitnis:
Stanley, after reading your response, I am wondering, how is this different than a RMI or EJB invocation ? Isn't EJB or a Remote Object fit your definition of providing services over Internet ?

I think EJB and RMI are technologies to achieve a web service.
Bye,
Viki.

[Stanley Tan]

Yes, but with RMI, you are limiting yourself to the Java platform. Also XML Web services operate by default over port 80 and hence can traverse most firewalls.

[Rich Raposa]

Sure, you can compare Web Services to RMI, CORBA, DCOM and other distributed computing models. That's because Web Services involves a client one machine and a server on the other machine.
However, Web Services is much more than that. It is a different approach to application development. Instead of writing a program to solve a particular problem, you write a program that provides various services.
Of course, along with this different programming paradigm is the added bonus that your Web Services can be used by any other application written in any language running on any platform, since technologies like SOAP and XML eliminate the concern over platforms and languages.
So don't get too carried with compariing Web Services to CORBA and EJB, since it's a little like comparing apples and oranges.