websevice standards

Web Service Standards

Web services are registered and announced using the following services and protocols. Many of these and other standards are being worked out by the UDDI project, a group of industry leaders that is spearheading the early creation and design efforts.


Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration (UDDI) is a protocol for describing available Web services components. This standard allows businesses to register with an Internet directory that will help them advertise their services, so companies can find one another and conduct transactions over the Web. This registration and lookup task is done using XML and HTTP(S)-based mechanisms.

Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) is a protocol for initiating conversations with a UDDI Service. SOAP makes object access simple by allowing applications to invoke object methods or functions, residing on remote servers. A SOAP application creates a request block in XML, supplying the data needed by the remote method as well as the location of the remote object itself.


Web Service Description Language (WSDL), the proposed standard for how a Web service is described, is an XML-based service IDL (Interface Definitition Language) that defines the service interface and its implementation characteristics. WSDL is referenced by UDDI entries and describes the SOAP messages that define a particular Web service.

ebXML (e-business XML) defines core components, business processes, registry and repository, messaging services, trading partner agreements, and security.