Web Services in general seems to require the use of a large number of acronyms. A full discussion of the technologies that comprise Web Services is beyond the scope of this documentation. For complete information, please refer to the W3C web pages at: http://www.w3.org/2002/ws/
The following chart is provided as a convenient reference to some that are more frequently used.
|
Term |
Definition |
|
SOAP |
SOAP (originally Simple Object Access Protocol) is a protocol for exchanging XML-based messages over computer networks, normally using HTTP. |
|
Web Service |
The W3C defines a Web service as a software system designed to support inter-operable Machine to Machine interaction over a network. Web services are frequently just Web APIs that can be accessed over a network, such as the Internet, and executed on a remote system hosting the requested services. |
|
XML |
eXtensible Markup Language. Its primary purpose is to facilitate the sharing of data across different information systems, particularly systems connected via the Internet. |
|
WSDL |
Web Services Description Language is an XML-based language that provides a model for describing Web services. The World Wide Web Consortium provides a description of WSDL and a set of examples for using it at http://www.w3.org/TR/wsdl |
|
RPC |
Remote Procedure Call |