What are Web Services?

Pradeep Maurya
web-services-rest-vs-soap

A Web Service is can be defined by the following ways:

  • It is a client-server application or application component for communication.
  • It is a method of communication between two devices over the network.
  • It is a software system for the interoperable machine to machine to machine communication.
  • It is a collection of standards or protocols for exchanging information between two devices or applications.
web services

As you can see in the figure, Java, .Net or PHP applications can communicate with other applications through web service over the network. For Example, Java application can interact with java, .Net and PHP application.

So web service is a language independent way of communication.

Types of Web Services

There are mainly two types of web services:

  1. SOAP Web Services
  2. RESTful web Services

SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol):

SOAP stands for Simple Object Access Protocol. It is an XML- based protocol for accessing web services. SOAP is a W3C recommendation for communication between two applications.

SOAP is XML based protocol. It is platform-independent and language independent. Using SOAP, you will be able to interact with other programming language applications.

Advantages of SOAP Web Services:

WS Security: SOAP defines its own security known as WS Security.

Language and Platform Independent: SOAP web services can be written in any programming language and executed in any platform.

Disadvantages of SOAP Web Services:

Slow: SOAP uses XML format that must be parsed to be read. It defines many standards that must be followed while developing SOAP applications. So it is slow and consumes more bandwidth and resources.

WSDL dependent: SOAP uses WSDL and does not have any other mechanism to discover the service.

RESTful Web Services:

REST stands for Representational State Transfer. REST is an architectural style, not a protocol.

Advantages of RESTful Web Services:

Fast: RESTful Web Services are fast because there is no strict specification like SOAP. It consumes less bandwidth and resources.

Language and Platform independent: RESTful web services can be written in any programming language and executed in any platform.

Permits different data formats: Restful web service permits different data formats such as Plain Text, HTML, XML, and JSON.

SOAP vs REST Web Services:

SNSOAP Web ServicesRESTful Web Services
1.SOAP is a protocol.REST is an architectural style.
2.SOAP stands for Simple Object Access Protocol.REST stands for Representational State Transfer.
3.SOAP can’t use REST because it is a protocol.REST can use SOAP web services because it is a concept and can use any protocol like HTTP, SOAP.
4.SOAP uses services interfaces to expose business logic.REST uses URI to expose business logic.
5.SOAP defines standards to be strictly followed.REST does not define too many standards like SOAP.
6.SOAP requires more bandwidth and resources than REST.REST requires less bandwidth and resources than SOAP.
7.SOAP defines its own security.REST web services inherit security measures from the underlying transport.
8.SOAP permits an XML data format only.REST permits different data format such a Plain text, HTML, XML, JSON, etc.
9.SOAP is less preferred than REST.REST more preferred than SOAP.

Conclusion:

In this article, I hope this article will help you all to understand web services. Also, you will get complete differences between SOAP and RESTful web services.

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