Definition of Web Service
If you asked ten people to define the term Web Service , you are likely to get ten different answers. This term has no single definition. Even the standards authorities cannot agree on what this term means. Before presenting you with what I consider to be a Web sevice, let’s first examine some definitions you may encounter.
The W3C created the Web Service Architecture Working Group to advise and create architectural documents in the area of Web services. After a bit of searching to find out what happened to this group, I found that it appears the group could not even agree on the definition of a Web service.
A Web service is a software system designed to support inter operable machine-to-machine interaction over a network. It has an interface described in a machine-processable format . Other systmes interact with the Web service in a manner prescribed by its description using SOAP (Simple Object Potocal) messages, typically conveyed using HTTP with an XML serialization in conjunction with other Web-related standards.
