Issue TOC Print full article Print this page Download as PDF E-Mail this URL Flame the author     In this article Introduction The Building Blocks Onward and Upward Environmental Concerns Web Services Glossary From the Ground Up Related Sites Best Practices

• Extensible Markup Language (XML): Similar to HTML, XML is a text-format language that is the basis for structured documents on the Web. See www.w3.org/XML/1999/XML-in-10-points.

• Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP): Developed by Microsoft, SOAP uses XML and HTTP to let apps running on different OSs communicate. SOAP has been presented to the IETF. A somewhat dubious distinction is that SOAP calls can easily pass through firewalls, which normally accept HTTP traffic over Port 80. See the spec at www.w3.org/TR/SOAP/.

• Universal Description, Discovery and Integration (UDDI):Envisioned as the mother of all yellow pages, UDDI is an XML-based registry where businesses can list themselves on the Internet by name, location and product or service offered. The UDDI specification incorporates W3C and IETF standards, such as XML, HTTP, SOAP and DNS. See www.uddi.org/specification.html.