Web Services

Web services are a standardized way of integrating web-based applications using open standards over an internet protocol backbone. Essentially, they are software systems designed to support interoperable machine-to-machine interaction over a network.

Web services typically operate over [[HTTP Protocol|HTTP]]/[[HTTPS Protocol|HTTPS]] and use [[Extensible Markup Language|XML]]-based messaging systems like [[SOAP]] (Simple Object Access Protocol) to encode messages. One of the main advantages of web services is their ability to operate across different platforms and languages. For instance, a web service written in [[Java]] can be accessed by a client application written in [[Dotnet|.NET]].

They are designed to be used by other applications, and various applications can communicate with each other and share data and services among themselves. Web services are described using a standard format known as [[WSDL|WSDL (Web Services Description Language)]]. This allows any client that understands WSDL to discover and invoke the service

Apart from SOAP, there's also [[REST APIs|REST]] (Representational State Transfer) which uses standard HTTP methods like GET, POST, PUT, DELETE for communication. RESTful services are widely popular due to their simplicity and ease of use.

Web services are used in various applications such as financial services, e-commerce, [[Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Software|CRM (Customer Relationship Management)]], and more. They enable businesses to communicate with each other and with clients over the Internet.