What a "Web Service" Is

A "web service" is the proposed answer to these concerns. What are a web services's properties?

Properties of a web service

• Loosely coupled. Changing either side of a client/server relationship affects nothing. It doesn't matter if Microsoft buys out the pro-Java, pro-Corba company and replaces its services with DCOM. The web service works the same.
• Message based, asynchronous protocol. Web services can be developed around any asynchronous message protocol, be it HTTP or SMTP. XML is the format required of the messages.
  • It improves over distributed object system (DCOM, Corba, RMI). It assumes less about the nature of the clients and servers; all it requires is that a recipient will understand an XML message.
  • The recipient can change radically (as in the example above), so long as it supports the same message set.
  • The sender doesn't care what's on the other side; it only needs to know how to make well-formed messages.

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