Page 45 - 6485

communication is in XML and is not tied to any one operating system or

programming language. For example, programs written in Java can talk

with programs written in Perl and application written for Windows

applications can talk with applications written for UNIX. XML is used to

tag the data, SOAP is used to transfer the data and communicate with

applications, WSDL is used for describing the services available and

UDDI is used for listing what services are available and their associated

WSDL descriptions.

Use of web services is increasing, and some industry analysts report

companies are using web services in 25 percent of all current data

integration projects. EBay and Amazon.com are two large E-businesses

that are developing their web services aggressively.

Companies such as Microsoft and Sun Microsystems (now a part of

Oracle) have been aggressively developing and pushing their technology

initiatives (e.g. Microsoft. NET and Sun Java 2 platforms, Enterprise

Edition) to build and develop web services. Many companies using web

services have found it a less-expensive way of application integration than

using middleware. For example, Merrill Lynch implemented an

application integration project using web services used web services to

implement an integration project for at a cost 70% less than the cost of the

same project using its older application integration approach.

Despite its advantages, web services do have some disadvantages.

All data in web services is stored and transmitted in XML format. With

so many variations of XML in use, business partners using a web service

must agree on a particular XML version to use.

45