Web services are application components that are basically used to publish business logic. They allow us to communicate using well-documented and open protocols, so we can use web services to, for example, communicate with other applications, and we can also use them to reuse or publish our business logic.
In the preceding diagram, UDDI (Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration) defines which system is which, respective to its specific data. First, the system to be contacted is discovered, and then contact is established using the SOAP web service.
The service provider system validates the request by referring to the WSDL (Web Services Description Language) file, processing the request, and sending the data using the SOAP protocol.
Web services are self-contained and self-describing, which means that, if you publish your business logic via a web service, it happens via some specific protocols that describe exactly how external components or applications can make use...