A web service protocol stack is a

protocol stack The protocol stack or network stack is an implementation of a computer networking protocol suite or protocol family. Some of these terms are used interchangeably but strictly speaking, the ''suite'' is the definition of the communication protoco ...

(a stack of computer networking

protocol Protocol may refer to: Sociology and politics * Protocol (politics), a formal agreement between nation states * Protocol (diplomacy), the etiquette of diplomacy and affairs of state * Etiquette, a code of personal behavior Science and technology ...

s) that is used to define, locate, implement, and make Web services interact with each other. A web service protocol stack typically stacks four protocols: * (Service) Transport Protocol: responsible for transporting messages between network applications and includes protocols such as

HTTP The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is an application layer protocol in the Internet protocol suite model for distributed, collaborative, hypermedia information systems. HTTP is the foundation of data communication for the World Wide Web, ...

SMTP The Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) is an Internet standard communication protocol for electronic mail transmission. Mail servers and other message transfer agents use SMTP to send and receive mail messages. User-level email clients typic ...

FTP The File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is a standard communication protocol used for the transfer of computer files from a server to a client on a computer network. FTP is built on a client–server model architecture using separate control and data ...

, as well as the more recent

Blocks Extensible Exchange Protocol The Blocks Extensible Exchange Protocol (BEEP) is a framework for creating network application protocols. BEEP includes building blocks like framing, pipelining, multiplexing, reporting and authentication for connection and message-oriented peer ...

(BEEP). * (XML) Messaging Protocol: responsible for encoding messages in a common

XML Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing arbitrary data. It defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable. ...

format so that they can be understood at either end of a network connection. Currently, this area includes such protocols as

XML-RPC XML-RPC is a remote procedure call (RPC) protocol which uses XML to encode its calls and HTTP as a transport mechanism.Simon St. Laurent, Joe Johnston, Edd Dumbill. (June 2001) ''Programming Web Services with XML-RPC.'' O'Reilly. First Editi ...

WS-Addressing Web Services Addressing (WS-Addressing) is a specification of transport-neutral mechanism that allows web services to communicate addressing information. It essentially consists of two parts: a structure for communicating a reference to a Web ser ...

, and

SOAP Soap is a salt of a fatty acid used in a variety of cleansing and lubricating products. In a domestic setting, soaps are surfactants usually used for washing, bathing, and other types of housekeeping. In industrial settings, soaps are used ...

. * (Service) Description Protocol: used for describing the public interface to a specific Web service. The

WSDL The Web Services Description Language (WSDL ) is an XML-based interface description language that is used for describing the functionality offered by a web service. The acronym is also used for any specific WSDL description of a web service (also ...

interface format is typically used for this purpose. * (Service) Discovery Protocol: centralizes services into a common registry so that network Web services can publish their location and description, and makes it easy to discover what services are available on the network.

Universal Description Discovery and Integration Web Services Discovery provides access to software systems over the Internet using standard protocols. In the most basic scenario there is a ''Web Service Provider'' that publishes a service and a ''Web Service Consumer'' that uses this service. ...

(UDDI) was intended for this purpose, but it has not been widely adopted. The protocol stack can also include a range of higher-level protocols such as

Business Process Execution Language The Web Services Business Process Execution Language (WS-BPEL), commonly known as BPEL (Business Process Execution Language), is an OASIS standard executable language for specifying actions within business processes with web services. Process ...

(WS-BPEL) or

WS-Security Web Services Security (WS-Security, WSS) is an extension to SOAP to apply security to Web services. It is a member of the Web service specifications and was published by OASIS. The protocol specifies how integrity and confidentiality can be enfo ...

for security extensions.

External links

Alex Nghiem (2003) The Basic Web Services StackinnoQ (2007) Web Services Standards as of Q1 2007Lawrence Wilkes (updated Feb 2005) The Web Services Protocol Stack
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