What is Web Service?

Web service is an interface where data is exchanged between applications instead of users.

A Web service provides data as a service over the HTTP protocol. Web services allow applications built using different technologies to communicate with each other. Typically, Web services use the SOAP or REST protocols to define the communication and structure of messages, while XML or JSON are the formats used for the data exchanged.

Examples of Web services that you may be familiar with are those providing weather or news updates that you can use on your site or application; you can see an example of this type of Web service in Genero's RSS demo application. See Genero demo applications. For more information on Web service, refer to the Genero Business Development Language User Guide.