Web services allow us to write functionality that can be accessed across a network in a language and platform independent way.
There are two different approaches that are frequently used to develop web services: the first approach is to use the Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), the second approach is to use the Representational State Transfer (REST) protocol. NetBeans supports creating web services using either approach.
Note
In this chapter, we will focus on creating web services and web service clients using the SOAP protocol. For more information regarding RESTful web service development in NetBeans refer to the RESTful web services tutorials at http://www.netbeans.org/kb/trails/ java-ee.html.
When using the SOAP protocol, web service operations are defined in an XML document called a Web Services Definition Language (WSDL) file. After creating the WSDL, implementation of web services is done in a proper programming language such as Java. The process of creating...