The next generation application interaction after the message queue is an open standard protocol called web services. It allows applications to communicate based on XML/SOAP/HTTP methodologies for information exchange. A simple individual application can be converted into a web application interacting with other applications using web services.
A web service can be defined as a collection of open protocols and standards for exchanging information among systems or applications. Enterprise applications developed in diverse technologies and languages and executed on different platforms can make web services a common technology to exchange information across system networks (internet/intranet), a kind of interprocess communication within a single computer. This interoperability (for example, between .Net and Java or Linux and Windows) is possible by following open standards.
Not all services performed by an application can be described as a web service. A service can be treated as...