[ Home ] [ Links ] [ Code Samples ] [ Exercises ] [ Errata ]
I've been asked to provide an example of the use of Web Services in a real application. If you want to know more about what Web Services are in general, IBM have a useful introductory guide on their DeveloperWorks site. Alternatively read Chapters 15 and 16 of XML in theory and practice.
Everyone knows about Amazon.com, it's one of the most successful businesses of the Internet age, and one of the few successful survivors of the Dotcom bubble. You might think that Amazon is just a Website catalog with a large warehouse behind it but it's actually much more than that. One of the most interesting things at Amazon is a Web Service. Amazon Web Services, AWS, provide a programmatic interface which lets remote applications query the massive Amazon database using either a direct XML connection or a SOAP-based application. In this article I'm going to show how you can develop real applications which use the Amazon SOAP interface. SOAP is defined using an XML structure. SOAP messages are XML messages usually transported using HTTP. Because the whole SOAP system uses standard technologies it is platform and language independent. I'm going to develop my application using Java but you could use almost any programming language.
[ Home ] [ Links ] [ Code Samples ] [ Exercises ] [ Errata ]