Book Review: "Web Services: A Technical Introduction" (1/2) - exploring XML

Book Review: "Web Services: A Technical Introduction"

Now that Web services passed the peak of the hype curve and have moved into productive use, Prentice Hall's Deitel Developer Series provides a technical introduction to Web services that is packed with information on business models, vendors and products as well as base technology.

What makes this book unique is that it looks at Web services acronyms, technical implications, business backgrounds and vendor strategies. The first book in a "Technical Introduction" series, it is designed to be a "literacy" book that explains Web services, explores the benefits provided to business and discusses key concepts related to the the technology. It also includes significant programming appendices that present Visual Basic .NET and Java Web services implementations.

Content

The book is divided into several sections. The first four chapters present the business case for Web services, introducing the basics of Web services, describing Web services's strengths and limitations and examining the development of Web services standards. This section explores how companies can use Web services to improve productivity and and enhance their business models. These chapters present numerous case studies that describe how specific companies are employing Web services to integrate systems and improve communication among departments, supply chains and partners.

The next three chapters delve into more technical topics, including explanantions of core Web services technology and standards. We begin by introducing XML, its history and role inWe services. This leads to an analysis of various XML-derived technologies that incorporate Web services, including e-business XML (ebXML), Business Transaction Protocol (BTP), Business Process Model Language (BPML) and Web Services Flow Language (WSFL). It goes on to examine the fundamentals of SOAP, including the SOAP messaging specification, the architecture of SOAP messages and Remote Procedure Calls (RPCs). It also discusses WSDL, and presents a sample WSDL document. It concludes by exploring various technologies for locating Web services on a network, including public and private UDDI registries, ebXML registries and WS-Inspection.documents.

Chapter eight describes a variety of vendors and the Web services development tools they offer. It also discusses vendors that market Web services management and workflow products. Following this broad overview of Web services development platforms, the book examines the two most popular platforms -- .NET and Java -- in detail. The book also looks at general computer concepts, such as cryptography, digital signatures and steganography. The last chapter examines the set of emerging XML-based security standards designed specifically for Web services.

And there are appendices...

Produced by Michael Claßen

URL: https://www.webreference.com/xml/column79/index.html
Created: Apr 14, 2003
Revised: Apr 14, 2003