SOAP, WSDL, and
Discovery
Unit-4 C# & Dot NET Framework
Web Services
• Web services are application components
• Web services communicate using open
protocols
• Web services are self-contained and self-
describing
• Web services can be discovered using UDDI
• Web services can be used by other applications
• XML is the basis for Web services
How Does it works?
• The basic Web services platform is XML +
HTTP.
• XML provides a language which can be
used between different platforms and
programming languages and still express
complex messages and functions.
• The HTTP protocol is the most used
Internet protocol.
Web services platform elements
• SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol)
• UDDI (Universal Description, Discovery
and Integration)
• WSDL (Web Services Description
Language)
Purpose
• .NET Web Services expand on the concept of
distributed processing to build components
whose methods can be invoked across the
Internet. These components can be built in any
• .NET language, and they communicate using
open protocols that are platform-independent.
• Web Services take Web-applications to the Next
Level
Purpose
• By using Web services, your application
can publish its function or message to the
rest of the world.
• Web services use XML to code and to
decode data, and SOAP to transport it
(using open protocols).
• With Web services you can exchange data
between different applications and
different platforms.
Purpose
• In such a world, a single application might
draw on and stitch together the services of
hundreds of small web services
distributed all over the world.
• This takes the Web to an entirely new
dimension: not only is information
retrieved and exchanged, but also
methods are invoked and applications are
executed.
Web Services have Two Types of Uses
• Reusable application-components.
– There are things applications need very often. So why
make these over and over again?
– Web services can offer application-components like:
currency conversion, weather reports, or even
language translation as services.
• Connect existing software.
– Web services can help to solve the interoperability
problem by giving different applications a way to link
their data.
List of Web Services
• The list of web services that might be useful to
developers and end users seems boundless.
• A bookstore might provide a web service that
takes an ISBN and returns the price and
availability of a title.
• A hotel's web service might take a date range
and number of guests and return a reservation.
• Another web service might take a telephone
number and return a name and address.
• Yet another might provide information about the
weather or shuttle launches.
.NET services
• Microsoft has announced a number of
commercial .NET services as part of its .NET My
Services initiative.
• Among these are its Passport service for
identifying and authenticating users (http://
www.passport.com/), as well as services for
managing storage, notification, appointments,
and a host of other applications.
• These services, as well as the ones you write,
can be integrated with your applications just like
any other business object.
• What is needed to make web services possible
is a simple, universally accepted protocol for
exposing, finding, and invoking web service
functions.
• In 1999, Simple Object Access Protocol
(SOAP) was proposed to the World Wide
Web Consortium. SOAP has the advantages
of being based on XML and of using standard
Internet communications protocols.
Why SOAP ?
• It is important for application development to allow
Internet communication between programs.
• Today's applications communicate using Remote
Procedure Calls (RPC) between objects like DCOM and
CORBA, but HTTP was not designed for this. RPC
represents a compatibility and security problem; firewalls
and proxy servers will normally block this kind of traffic.
• A better way to communicate between applications is
over HTTP, because HTTP is supported by all Internet
browsers and servers. SOAP was created to accomplish
this.
• SOAP provides a way to communicate between
applications running on different operating systems, with
different technologies and programming languages
SOAP
• SOAP is an XML-based protocol to let applications exchange
information over HTTP.
• Or more simple: SOAP is a protocol for accessing a Web Service.
• SOAP stands for Simple Object Access Protocol
• SOAP is a communication protocol
• SOAP is a format for sending messages
• SOAP is designed to communicate via Internet
• SOAP is platform independent
• SOAP is language independent
• SOAP is based on XML
• SOAP is simple and extensible
• SOAP allows you to get around firewalls
• SOAP is a W3C standard
SOAP
• SOAP is a lightweight, message-based protocol built on
XML, HTTP, and SMTP.
• Two other protocols are desirable, but not required, for a
client to use a SOAP-enabled web service:
– a description of the methods provided by a particular service that
can be understood and acted upon by clients, and a
– description of all such services available at a particular site or
URL.
– The first of these is provided in .NET by the Web Service
Description Language (WSDL) protocol, jointly developed by
Microsoft, IBM, and others.
– Two other protocols have been proposed for discovery: UDDI, a
joint effort by a number of companies including IBM and
Microsoft, and Discovery, a proprietary offering from Microsoft.
SOAP Building Blocks
• A SOAP message is an ordinary XML document
containing the following elements:
• An Envelope element that identifies the XML
document as a SOAP message
– A Header element that contains header information
– A Body element that contains call and response
information
– A Fault element containing errors and status
information
WSDL
• WSDL is an XML schema used to describe the
available methods and the interface of a web
service.
• WSDL is an XML-based language for locating
and describing Web services.
• WSDL stands for Web Services Description
Language
– WSDL is based on XML
– WSDL is used to describe Web services
– WSDL is used to locate Web services
– WSDL is a W3C standard
WSDL
• A WSDL document is just a simple XML document.
• It contains set of definitions to describe a web service.
The WSDL Document Structure
• A WSDL document describes a web service using these
major elements:
• <types> -The data types used by the webservice
• <message>The messages used by the web service
• <portType>The operations performed by the web service
• <binding>The communication protocols used by the web
service
main structure of a WSDL
document
• <definitions>
<types>
definition of types........
</types>
<message>
definition of a message....
</message>
<portType>
definition of a port.......
</portType>
<binding>
definition of a binding....
</binding>
</definitions>
UDDI
• UDDI is a directory service where companies
can register and search for Web services.
• UDDI stands for Universal Description,
Discovery and Integration
• UDDI is a directory for storing information about
web services
• UDDI is a directory of web service interfaces
described by WSDL
• UDDI communicates via SOAP
• UDDI is built into the Microsoft .NET platform
What is UDDI Based On?
• UDDI uses World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)
and Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)
Internet standards such as XML, HTTP, and
DNS protocols.
• UDDI uses WSDL to describe interfaces to web
services
• Additionally, cross platform programming
features are addressed by adopting SOAP,
known as XML Protocol messaging
specifications found at the W3C Web site.
UDDI Benefits
• Any industry or businesses of all sizes can benefit from UDDI.
• Before UDDI, there was no Internet standard for businesses to reach their
customers and partners with information about their products and services.
Nor was there a method of how to integrate into each other's systems and
processes.
• Problems the UDDI specification can help to solve:
• Making it possible to discover the right business from the millions currently
online
• Defining how to enable commerce once the preferred business is
discovered
• Reaching new customers and increasing access to current customers
• Expanding offerings and extending market reach
• Solving customer-driven need to remove barriers to allow for rapid
participation in the global Internet economy
• Describing services and business processes programmatically in a single,
open, and secure environment
How can UDDI be Used?
• If the industry published an UDDI standard
for flight rate checking and reservation,
airlines could register their services into an
UDDI directory. Travel agencies could
then search the UDDI directory to find the
airline's reservation interface. When the
interface is found, the travel agency can
communicate with the service immediately
because it uses a well-defined reservation
interface.
Who is Supporting UDDI?
• UDDI is a cross-industry effort driven by all
major platform and software providers like
Dell, Fujitsu, HP, Hitachi, IBM, Intel,
Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, and Sun, as well
as a large community of marketplace
operators, and e-business leaders.
• Over 220 companies are members of the
UDDI community.
