Interview :: Web Services
These are some of the important advantages of RESTful web services:
- Fast - The Web Services are fast because there is no strict specification of SOAP. It consumes less bandwidth and resource.
- Language Independent - The web services can be written in any programming language.
- Platform Independent - The web services can be executed on any platform.
- Can use SOAP - The web services can use SOAP web services as the implementation.
- Allows different data format - The web service permits different data format such as Plain Text, HTML, XML, and JSON.
| No. | SOAP | REST |
|---|---|---|
| 1) | SOAP is a protocol. | REST is an architectural style. |
| 2) | SOAP stands for Simple Object Access Protocol. | REST stands for Representational State Transfer. |
| 3) | SOAP can't use REST because it is a protocol. | REST can use SOAP web services because it is a concept and can use any protocol like HTTP, SOAP. |
| 4) | SOAP uses services interfaces to expose the business logic. | REST uses URI to expose business logic. |
| 5) | SOAP defines standards to be strictly followed. | REST does not define too much standards like SOAP. |
| 6) | SOAP permits XML data format only. | REST permits different data format such as Plain text, HTML, XML, JSON. |
The tools used to test web services are:
- SoapUI tool for testing SOAP and RESTful web services
- Poster for firefox browser
- Postman extension for Chrome
In Web service, an XML is used to tag the data, format the data.
WSDL is used in web service to describe the availability of service.
The Web services facilitate various applications to communicate with each other and share data and services among themselves. Other applications can also use the web services. For example, a VB or .NET application can communicate with a Java web services and vice versa. Web services are used to make the application platform and technology independent.
A consumer of a web service is not tied to that web service directly. The web service interface can change over time without compromising the client's ability to interact with the service. A tightly coupled system implies that the client and server logic are closely tied to one another, implying that if one interface changes, the other must be updated. Adopting a loosely coupled architecture tends to make software systems more manageable and facilitates simpler integration between different systems.