Summary

Web services are powerful applications that are easy to build using ASP.NET and VS .NET. You can invoke Web methods from server-side assemblies or from client-side scripts using the WebService DHTML behavior. In addition, you can call Web methods in either synchronous or in asynchronous modes. Web services are called remotely, so it is important that they be designed for maximum responsiveness. Finally, Web services currently have no standard, established method for authentication and security. A group of industry leaders have proposed a federated security system that uses SOAP extensions. This approach contains elements that have been successfully applied in HTTPS. This chapter also extended the discussion by showing how to use SOAP headers for implementing a simple authentication system.