Web Services Protocol Stack - Definition and Overview

The Web service protocol stack is a gradually developing collection of protocols used to define, locate, implement, and make Web services interact with each other. These protocols are deployed in four levels:

• Service Transport: This level is responsible for transporting messages between applications and includes protocols such as HTTP, SMTP, FTP, as well as the more recent BEEP.
• XML Messaging: It is responsible for encoding messages in a common XML format so that messages can be understood at either end. Currently, this includes XML-RPC and SOAP.
• Service Description: It is use for describing the public interface to a specific Web service, normally WSDL.
• Service Discovery: It centralises services into a common registry, and provides easy publish and locate functions. At present, UDDI is used for service discovery.

Web service protocol stack also includes a whole range of recently set up protocols: WSFL, SOAP-DSIG, or SOAP-DSIG.

External links

• Lawrence Wilkes (updated 2004) The Web Services Protocol Stack (http://roadmap.cbdiforum.com/reports/protocols/)
• Alex Nghiem (2003) The Basic Web Services Stack (http://www.informit.com/articles/article.asp?p=31076&seqNum=2)
• Ethan Cerami (2002) Top Ten FAQs for Web Services (http://webservices.xml.com/pub/a/ws/2002/02/12/webservicefaqs.html)
• Pavel Kulchenko (2002) Web Services Acronyms, Demystified (http://webservices.xml.com/lpt/a/ws/2002/01/09/soap.html)