Conclusion

Web Services are "top of the toybox" right now and are receiving a great deal of hype. However, just because they are being hyped doesn't mean there is no substance. Just the opposite: There are huge advantages in deploying Web Services.

Much of this chapter is intended to promote the idea that the advantages of Web Services will not come automatically just because we begin to use the technology. The technology must be mastered, and there is a fair bit of it, but the core issue is to build it into a service-oriented architecture.

There are semantic issues to be resolved in almost every aspect of this architecture, including how, semantically, we identify a Web Service such that it can be found and invoked properly. What are the semantics of a contract between the provider and user of a service? How can a semantic representation aid us in the process of building composite applications from Web Services?

These issues must be resolved. They may be resolved in the context of Web Services; or, as we take up in Chapter 14, we may have to wait for the Semantic Web to resolve them.