Web services is the integration technology preferred by organizations implementing service-oriented architectures. I would recommend that anybody involved in application development obtain a working knowledge of these technologies,. Leading-edge IT organizations are currently exploring second generation web service technologies, but introductory material beyond technical specifications is sparse. Building service-oriented architecture…with less risk, cost, and complexity.

The emergence of key second-generation Web services standards has positioned service-oriented architecture (SOA) as the foremost platform for contemporary business automation solutions. The integration of SOA principles and technology is empowering organizations to build applications with unprecedented levels of flexibility, agility, and sophistication (while also allowing them to leverage existing legacy environments).

During the following year, the W3C published the WSDL specification. Another implementation of XML, this standard supplied a language for describing the interface of Web services. Further supplemented by the Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration (UDDI) specification that provided a standard mechanism for the dynamic discovery of service descriptions, the first generation of the Web services platform had been established. The next figure illustrates, on a high level, the relationship between these standards.