Architecture and standardisation of web services

Since Web Services are complex artefacts that rely on sophisticated protocols and data formats, it is important to have effective strategies for dealing with this complexity. As a basic concept, the Web Service technologies are structured in a stack model. It is crucial for every Web Service developer to have this model in mind and to have a clear understanding how the single items work together. In this chapter, we will first give an overview of the Web Service technology stack. Then, we will step through this model and discuss the different core technologies in detail. This includes different variants of Web Service transport bindings, SOAP, WSDL and UDDI.