Chapter 11: Implementing Web Services and the UDDI

Overview

There has been a great deal of hype in the business world concerning Web services. You have probably heard all about them recently, you may have read an article about them. The truth is that I have heard as many different explanations for what a Web service is as people I have heard try to explain what it is. This chapter gives you a solid definition (at least, my version) of what a Web service is and a practical overview of how to implement one. This chapter covers how to create a Web service and how to incorporate the code that you already created for the rest of the NorthwindTraders application. It also covers how to access that Web service from another Windows forms application. You will also see you how to create classes based on a Web service using the Web Service Description Language (WSDL) utility that ships with .NET. This chapter does not cover Web service security, which is an extremely large topic, or the many competing standards and organizations pushing for those standards.

Note

You can find several resources in Appendix B that will point you in the direction of the different standards bodies working toward unified Web service standards.

The second half of this chapter looks at the UDDI that ships with .NET Enterprise Server 2003. It covers setting up the UDDI, adding Web services to the UDDI, and programmatically accessing the UDDI Server.