SOA Glossary - Web Service

Service Oriented Architecture SOA Glossary - Web Services

A Web service is a body of solution logic that provides a physically decoupled technical contract consisting of a WSDL definition, an XML schema definition, and possibly a WS-Policy definition. This service contract exposes public functions (called operations) and is therefore comparable to a traditional application programming interface (API).

The logic encapsulated by a Web service does not need to be customized or component-based. Legacy application logic, for example, can be exposed via Web service contracts through the use of service adapter products. When custom-developed, Web service logic is typically based on the use of modern component technologies, such as Java and .NET. In this case, the components are further qualified as core service logic.

Source: SOA Service Oriented Architecture Glossary at soaglossary.com