A web service is a collection of protocols and standards used for exchanging data between applications or systems. Software applications written in various programming languages and running on various platforms can use web services to exchange data over computer networks like the Internet in a manner similar to inter-process communication on a single computer.
Web Services can be thought of as a wrapper that can be used to allow EJB's to invoke external services and also to allow external services and clients to invoke the EJB's. A major strength of Web Services is in the integration of the J2EE platform with the Microsoft .NET platform.Try this URL: http://www.javaworld.com/javaworld/jw-08-2004/jw-0802-ejbws.html
A service that can be offered and consumed over the web, which confirms to certain standards, which allow independence of underlying platform and technology. Some of those standards are SOAP, WSDL, UDDI, WS-Security and so on.
A Web service is a collection of protocols and it is a standardized way of integrating web-based applications using some open standards SOAP, WSDL and UDDI .
These can be used for exchanging data between applications , these applications written in different languages and are running on various platforms. we can call it as “Interoperability”.
Basically, SOAP is used to transfer the data, WSDL is used for describing the services available and UDDI is used for listing the services available.
Webservices are typically any services that can be published over the internet or on a wide range of networks so that the functionality is available to a wider audience..
There is a slight different between EJB service and webservies i.e Webservices can be published over internet whereas EJB services are typically services that can hosted with in a network say intranet or with in the servers of a application. However an EJB service can be published as webservice...
