A major impediment has held back the enormous potential of B2B. Most eCommerce-enabling applications currently in place can only transact with trading partners that have exactly the same applications in place. For example, a consumer can easily schedule the delivery of a gourmet meal from an online catering company (B2C). However, the online catering service has a much more difficult time using the Web to link its operations to produce markets and courier services. The problem? Companies use different formats, protocols, and applications that don't know how to talk to each other. Enter Web Services and its various protocols like SOAP, UDDI, and WSDL.
With Web Services, if the online catering service receives an order for fish that isn't available from their local resources, a Web Service can be launched to explore the registries of seafood markets in order to locate the fish.
Microsoft, IBM, BEA, and Sun are the current market leaders in Web Services. Microsoft has centered its Web Services strategy around .NET; everyone else has chosen Java.

About the Author

Ramesh Nagappan is an Enterprise Java Architect at Sun Java Center. With twelve years of experience, he specializes in the design and implementation of Java, CORBA, and XML-based distributed com- puting architectures for Internet applications, enterprise messaging, and Web services. He has also coauthored books on J2EE and EAI. Robert Skoczylas is an Enterprise Java Architect at Sun Java Center. With extensive experience in object-oriented technologies, he focuses on the design and implementation of large enterprise applications using Java and XML technologies. Rima Patel Sriganesh is a Technology Evangelist at Sun Microsystems. She specializes in Java, XML, and Integration platforms. Her areas of technology passion include Distributed Computing Models, Trust Computing, Semantic Web, and Grid Computing Architectures.

Table of Contents:
Foreword Introduction Part One: Evolution and Emergence of Web Services Chapter 1: Evolution of Distributed Computing Chapter 2: Introduction to Web Services Part Two: Web Services Architecture and Technologies Chapter 3: Building the Web Services Architecture Chapter 4: Developing Web Services Using SOAP Chapter 5: Description and Discovery of Web Services Chapter 6: Creating .NET Interoperability Part Three: Exploring Java Web Services Developer Pack Chapter 7: Introduction to the Java Web Services Chapter 8: XML Processing and Data Binding with Java APIs Chapter 9: XML Messaging Using JAXM and SAAJ Chapter 10: Building RPC Web Services with JAX-RP Chapter 11: Java API for XML Registries Chapter 12: Using the Java Web Services Developer Pack: Case Study Part Four: Security in Web Services Chapter 13: Web Services Security Part Five: Web Services Strategies and Solutions Chapter 14: Introduction to Sun ONE Further Reading Index