Chapter 16. Web Services

16. Web Services

For the final chapter in the book we're going to be looking at extending the reach of your applications by allowing them to communicate with other applications. The reasons for this communication can be just pulling data from a feed, such as stock prices or weather details, or integrating data into a business application, such as placing orders remotely. Integrating business applications allows you to work with other organizations, either using their services or providing services for them to use, and to work with distributed applications, perhaps with remote offices, or with multiple machines in a single office.

In this chapter we're going to look at how you can incorporate Web Services into your applications, whether that's by exposing them for others to use or using those exposed by others. In particular we will cover:

• How Web Services can be used to communicate between applications

• How to create Web Services for use by other applications

• How to use Web Services supplied by other applications

• How to customize the transfer of data

There will also be a brief look at some new and future areas of Web Services.