What is Web Services?

What is Web Services?

In summary, Web Services are services over the Internet, uses a standardized XML messaging system, and is not tied to any one operating system or programming language.

Any Example?

Consider the following scenario. A user visits a site, performs some searches, and then places an order. While this sequence is acceptable for an individual consumer, it falls short in cases where the purchase cycle tends to be repeated frequently, for example, a corporation purchasing a variety of items from multiple sources.
Requiring a person to manually perform a process can be time consuming and prone to errors. Automating such processes would certainly streamline a company's operations significantly. Consider how expensive it is for a purchasing agent to re-enter information into an accounting system that is returned from a purchasing system.

If we can implement the purchasing software to automatically places order to the suppliers order entry systems which return an acknowledgement in a short while after checking their (supplier) inventory. All all this can be done without human intervention. The suppliers in this case provide a Web Services to allow the purchasing software to invoke and the purchaser also implement a web services for the supplier to acknowledge after sometime. The later Web Services may not be needed if the response from the supplier can be instantaneous. In normal operation, it may be difficult. The process of checking inventory may takes a while or subjected to approval due to parts allocation in situation where there are shortages.

So is Web Services for another software to access? You are correct.

In all these cases, web services provide new opportunities for partners to work together to deliver broader and richer solutions; Most importantly able to response to customers’ at a lower cost.

Web Service is based on existing Internet Technology such as HTML, HTTP and XML which is proven and widely adopted.

The Internet, XML and Web Services provide the infrastructure where computers using different operating system, application and platform can exchange data with each other. New applications can be implemented to ease the human in their routine activities.

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