Chapter 1: Web Services 101

Overview

The Microsoft .NET Framework has provoked divergent opinions since its beta release at the Microsoft Professional Developers Conference (PDC) in July 2000. Microsoft developers consider it a breath of fresh air and a great foundation on which to program. To open source and Java developers, it’s simply Microsoft’s attempt to catch up with Java, although many in this group admit a grudging respect for its standards-based core. Managers, who see it as just another toy for developers to play with, are wondering, “Why can’t we stick to the old way? There’s nothing tangible that distinguishes a .NET application from a COM-based one anyway, is there?”

As a .NET developer reading this book, you already know the answer to the managers’ questions. The .NET Framework improves on Microsoft’s COM architecture for applications and compares favorably with every other development platform in use. We could spend the next 10 pages listing its benefits and disadvantages, but rather than repeat what’s been said several hundred times by others, we’ll spend the next 15 chapters looking at just one big plus—Web services.

Web services have been sufficiently misunderstood that their uptake has been slower than might have been expected. However, they represent the next step in a lot of efforts—distributed computing, interoperability, Internet-based applications, access to legacy data…the list goes on. But, like the main character in Rocky at the beginning of the movie, the technology has yet to prove itself the world-beater that it is. For the past few years, rather than creating the killer Web service application, the developers and standards bodies have focused their efforts on strengthening the underlying technologies on which Web services work. As the plumbing nears completion and we wait for the eBay of the Web services world to appear, now is the time to start learning about this maturing technology.

Our view is perhaps better explained by a look at the evolution of the Web services architecture, the technologies it has been designed to reinvigorate and the problems it has been created to solve, and the questions the architecture itself has asked. You’ll see why Web services had to be invented and what role they play in today’s systems.