Web services are an online store that sells fresh salads can check out presence of greens from its regular sources or use a web service to explore the registry for local markets that carry that particular type of greens or one that connects with a fresh produce marketplace. Once such a selection is made, another Web service could state the order and deliver the information according to the terms described by the vendor
Web services help to steer us through a world of opportunities and empower us with the ability to conquer the next e-business frontier. Capitalizing on web services in this new way of operating offers companies a good enough reason to join the web services revolution.
Web services are business process interfaces. Each web service is a point of interaction to either give inputs/receive outputs from a business process. The web server provides the web service. They run in the background and wait for clients to connect to them. Basically it frees the programmer of writing code for the web service. They are URL addressable and can be invoked by any browser by just typing the path to the web service. Web services use HTTP protocol to communicate with clients.
Any e-business infrastructure involves multiple applications working across networks to interact and make e-business transactions. Web services promise to make the interaction between applications smooth, reliable, well integrated and open.
Any application that needs to pass on its outputs to another application/receive inputs from another application can benefit from being a web service.
Because of the reach and size of the Internet the number of web services is theoretically speaking endless - practically it is limited only by the bandwidth and reliability of the servers on the Internet.
The open and common standards used by Web Services ensure that any kind of application can interact with a web service. Traditionally, browsers provided information from the Internet in a visual format that only humans could make sense of. With Web services the information is provided in a computer understandable format and the applications can make sense of this information and take decisions based on its programmed intelligence. This really makes things faster and predictable and paves the way for virtual applications across the Internet
Microsoft's .NET initiative is a platform for the tools and servers required in the Web services world to come together. The .NET platform promises to help build, own and operate the Web services of tomorrow easily.
Companies need to get in touch with consultants and have their applications optimized around business processes to leverage this technology to their advantage. It calls for a new way of designing applications over the web and for a new way to build solutions of the future. At Stylus Systems, we offer similar consultancy services that help businesses leverage the .NET Framework into their organizations.
Key business processes can be made available as web services and this can help companies to build the web applications that can strategically leverage their business needs over the Internet. Once a web service is deployed, other applications or web services can interface with it and also call upon it easily. Using a basic platform that is HTML and XML based, they can run practically anywhere on the net. XML being a meta language that helps disparate systems exchange data, almost any application in any business becomes a potential candidate for web services.
Web enabling existing applications is a key initiative that can help in the quick transition to web services. Applications that enable key business processes can be easily converted to web services that can help companies to leverage this technology quickly.
Yes, the future will be industry wide specialized web services that will emerge to provide reliable, fast and economical services that integrate together as a custom application to serve the needs of a particular client/organization
Online stores will use web services to take care of their inventory management and provide just-in-time inventory maintenance. Production cycles are made to order. Customers will enjoy the privileges of customized order placement. E-market places will act in very much the ways the real market place does today - competition will breed the best of the lot. Suppliers, customers and retailers will locate one another at e-markets and procure, sell and transact in ways that are seamless and reliable using web services. Web services bring significant financial rewards and a competitive advantage to a company.
Legacy applications in an organization can be exposed to the net using web services. They can be wrapped with web service wrappers to be web services, thus streamlining business processes and reducing the time delays and costs.