Today, few enterprises or organizations doubt the need to turn their information technology (IT) systems into Web services. The question is, “When?” Is this technology mature enough? Are there any security problems that have yet to be solved? Moreover, since this technology has now become highly successful, and is likely to become even more so in the future, there is now a proliferation of books and magazines devoted to this subject. Most of them address partial aspects of the technology: Web services description language (WSDL), simple object access protocol (SOAP), or Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE).

In this book, Guruge discusses the theoretical and practical aspects of Web services, and, unlike other authors, proves that he is highly knowledgeable with regard to the ins and outs of the various manufacturers of this market.

In chapter 1, “Web Services: What, Why and Where?” in an almost nonstop fashion, the author presents us with an overall view of the present state of Web services. There are too many concepts here for only one chapter, as well as an interesting comment about security. Fortunately, at the end of the chapter, we find a clear summary of the basic concepts addressed.

Chapter 2, “XML - The Backbone of Web Services,” is an excellent chapter in which we are gradually introduced to Extensible Markup Language (XML), its importance in Web services, and the different components it is made up of. The author illustrates each XML element with good examples.

Chapter 3 is titled “Microsoft’s Web Services.” Although the chapter would appear at first to be devoted to Microsoft, it actually addresses the fierce struggle going on between IBM, Microsoft, Sun, and so on to gain control of this market. There is also a good introduction to .NET.

Chapter 4, “Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration,” is a largely technical chapter. It presents the universal description, discovery, and integration (UDDI) model and its structures, and provides readers with some updated examples of how it works.

Chapter 5, “SOAP,” is similar to the preceding chapter. It presents a technical description of the Web services message protocol, and discusses how it is related to XML. There are some examples of SOAP messages. This far into the book, there is still not one word about Java.

Chapter 6, “Java and Web Services,” introduces the reader to Java in some detail, and then to the J2EE platform and how this is related to Web services. It ends with a brief comparison of J2EE and .NET.

Chapter 7, “Deploying and Managing Web Services,” brings together all the concepts explained in the previous chapters. Special attention must be paid to the security issues, including public key infrastructure (PKI) for e-commerce.

There are excellent summaries, presented as questions and answers, at the end of each chapter, as well as a good glossary. Some of the figures used in the book could be clearer.

In summary, this is a very complete work on Web services that makes for useful reading from several different points of view: technical, consultation, and commercial. It is recommended to anyone wishing to understand the present situation, and possible future evolution, of Web services.