Petra University

E-Business & Commerce Department

E-Business Technology Course

Chapter 6:

Web Service Stack

Lama Omar
 Protocols
What is Protocol
 Protocol: sets of rules governs the exchanges of
messages, the intact arrival to the correct destination.
 A protocol will address concerns such as:
1. the format of a message (that is, its syntax)
2. the interpretation of message contents (that is, its
semantics)
3. how to start and end a message
4. the pattern of message exchange
5. acknowledging the receipt of messages
6. detecting and dealing with errors. 2
 Protocols – cont’d
 What is protocol – cont’d
• HTTP (the Hypertext Transfer Protocol): is a
request–response protocol; a client program,
such as a web browser, sends a request
message to a server program on another
computer, and the server then sends back a
response.
• The server's response, all being well, is a
status line including the message 200 OK
followed by the contents of the web page.
• If the request can't be met then the server will
respond with an error indication such as the
404 Not found message, which you have
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probably encountered.
 Protocols – cont’d
 Protocol suites
• Protocol suite (or protocol stack): A set of
protocols combined to perform a task. The
protocols are usually organised in layers,
each of which deals with a particular aspect
of the task.

• Higher-level protocols can build on the

functionality of lower-level protocols. This is
called protocol stack

• HTTP, which was intended for the transfer of

web pages, depends on lower-level protocols
such as TCP/IP to communicate across the
Internet from one computer to another. 4
 The Web Service Stack
 This stack of technologies is the foundation of e-
business implemented in the form of web services

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 The Web Service Stack
 Protocol suites (GLOSSARY)
• TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet
Protocol):
A suite of protocols to facilitate
communication between network devices. It
is the protocol that forms the basis of the
Internet.
• HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) :
The lightweight protocol used to
communicate requests between web clients
and web servers.
• HTTPS:
HTTP used over an SSL/TLS connection, thus
transferring encrypted information. 6
 The Web Service Stack
 Protocol suites (GLOSSARY) – cont’d
• XML (Extensible Markup Language):
A W3C standard for specifying structured
data and documents by marking up content
with tags in angle brackets (such as <order>).
Since new tags can be created, XML can be
used to create new special-purpose markup
languages.
• SOAP
An XML-based protocol for exchanging information,
often used to execute web services. SOAP is a W3C
standard that aims to be a lightweight protocol to
enable the creation of distributed applications using
heterogeneous software components across the
Internet.
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 The Web Service Stack
 Protocol suites (GLOSSARY) – cont’d
• WSDL (Web Services Description Language)
An XML-based specification used to describe
the interface to a web service; that is, what
operations are provided and the types of
input and output passed.
• BPEL (Business Process Execution Language):
An XML-based language for the specification
and execution of business processes.
• UDDI (Universal Description, Discovery and
Integration)
A registry service that provides links to
available web services and their WSDL
descriptions.
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 The Web Service Stack
 Protocol suites – cont’d
• The core of the web services stack is SOAP, a
messaging protocol used to invoke web
services
• SOAP messages are written in XML
• all the higher-level protocols and standards
use XML.
• SOAP messages have a request–response
model similar to that of HTTP, and so it is a
natural fit to send SOAP messages over
HTTP.
• From HTTP downwards, web services use
the standard Internet protocol stack for
communication and thus benefit from the
ubiquitous reach of the Internet.
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 The Web Service Stack
 Protocol suites – cont’d
• One particular benefit of using HTTP for
SOAP transport is that corporate firewalls
are generally open to HTTP traffic in order to
allow web browsing, and this lets SOAP
messages pass through as well. (SOAP
messages can be passed over other
transport protocols, but HTTP appears to be
the protocol of choice at the time of
writing).

• It is also possible to make secure

connections using HTTPS (the combination
of HTTP over an encrypted connection using
SSL/TLS),
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 End of Chapter 6

Lama Omar