Software Engineering: Simple Object Access Protocol (Definitions)

"An XML-based protocol for invoking remote procedures. SOAP has become one of the cornerstones of Web services, and has been accepted as a standard by all major vendors including Microsoft, SUN, IBM, and others." (Atul Apte, "Java™ Connector Architecture: Building Custom Connectors and Adapters", 2002)

"A standardized protocol used to call Internet-based services (Web services) by exchanging XML messages." (Johannes Link & Peter Fröhlich, "Unit Testing in Java", 2003)

"Designed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), this transport protocol provides a standard way to send messages between applications using XML." (Sara Morganand & Tobias Thernstrom , "MCITP Self-Paced Training Kit : Designing and Optimizing Data Access by Using Microsoft SQL Server 2005 - Exam 70-442", 2007)

"is a protocol for exchange of information in a distributed environment. It is an XML based protocol consisting of three parts: an envelope (a framework for describing what is in a message and how to process it), a set of encoding rules (for expressing instances of application-defined datatypes), and a convention for representing remote procedure calls and responses." (Craig F Smith & H Peter Alesso, "Thinking on the Web: Berners-Lee, Gödel and Turing", 2008)

"A protocol for exchanging XML messages over a network. It defines the structure of the XML messages (the SOAP envelope), and a framework that defines how these messages should be processed by software." (Mark Olive, "SHARE: A European Healthgrid Roadmap", 2009)

"A wrapper specification from the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) for requests for web services that facilitates interoperability between a broad mixture of programs and platforms." (DAMA International, "The DAMA Dictionary of Data Management", 2011)

"A protocol specification for exchanging structured information in a Web services implementation." (Craig S Mullins, "Database Administration", 2012)

"A protocol specification for exchanging data. Along with REST, it is used for storing and retrieving data in the Amazon storage cloud." (Marcia Kaufman et al, "Big Data For Dummies", 2013)

"A common protocol used to establish a session between a Web server and mobile app; it is stateless by design." (Mike Harwood, "Internet Security: How to Defend Against Attackers on the Web" 2nd Ed., 2015)

"A lightweight protocol for exchange of information in a decentralized, distributed environment." (Adam Gordon, "Official (ISC)2 Guide to the CISSP CBK" 4th Ed., 2015)

"A standard format in XML for sending data between a client and a Web service. The service's WSDL file specifies the format of the SOAP messages it expects and will return." (Microfocus)

Software Engineering: Service Choreography (Definitions)

"A way of aggregating services to business processes. In contrast to orchestration, choreography does not compose services to a new service that has central control over the whole process. Instead, it defines rules and policies that enable different services to collaborate to form a business process. Each service involved in the process sees and contributes only a part of it." (Nicolai M Josuttis, "SOA in Practice", 2007)

"An a priori global and public model meant to capture all the interactions taking place for a given purpose among a number of participants." (Giorgio Bruno & Marcello La Rosa, "Collaboration Based on Web Services", 2008)

"Choreography is the message exchange behavior that a business exposes in order to participate in a business relationship based on electronic message exchanges." (Christoph Bussler, "Business-to-Business (B2B) Integration", 2009)

"It is a service composition paradigm where no centralized entity is responsible for coordinating the execution of the subordinate services. It is often seen as an abstract service composition since it defines cooperation (e.g., message exchanging) rules but no actual execution flow." (Carlos Kamienski et al, "Managing the Future Internet: Services, Policies and Peers", 2010)

[Web Service Choreography:] "A particular web service composition where several peer web services collaborate in a distributed environment. In a choreography there is not a services acting as a leader and synchronizing the work of the other services, as happen in case of orchestration. This makes choreography more difficult to realize in real settings." (Liliana Ardissono et al, "An Event-Based Middleware for the Management of Choreographed Services", 2012)

"Contract between two or more systems, which establishes how they cooperate to achieve some common goal." (José C Delgado, "Frameworks for Distributed Interoperability", Encyclopedia of Information Science and Technology, 2015)

"Global behavior is called choreography. Choreography is specified using UML activity diagrams. We have used two levels of choreography models: flow-global and flow-localized." (Surya B Kathayat, "Collaboration-Based Model-Driven Approach for Business Service Composition", 2012)

"Define the service collaboration at service-computing level." (Laura C Rodriguez-Martinez et al, "Service-Oriented Computing Applications (SOCA) Development Methodologies: A Review of Agility-Rigor Balance", 2021)

"Defines the requirements and sequences through which multiple Web services interact." (NIST SP 800-95)

Software Engineering: Web Service(s) (Definitions)

"The programmatic interfaces that enable different applications to communicate and process data via the Web." (Evan Levy & Jill Dyché, "Customer Data Integration", 2006)

"A set of standards that serves as one possible way of realizing a SOA infrastructure. Initially started with the core standards XML, HTTP, WSDL, SOAP, and UDDI, it now contains over 60 standards and profiles developed and maintained by different standardization organizations, such as W3C, OASIS, and WS-I." (Nicolai M Josuttis, "SOA in Practice", 2007)

"A software component designed to support interoperable machine-to-machine interaction over a network based on Internet standards." (Victor Isakov et al, "MCITP Administrator: Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Optimization and Maintenance (70-444) Study Guide", 2007)

"A software system used to transfer data. A common use of a Web service is to transfer data across the Internet. A Web service provider receives requests for data and responds. For example, a weather Web service could accept a zip code as input and respond with weather data for the zip code." (Robert D. Schneider and Darril Gibson, "Microsoft SQL Server 2008 All-In-One Desk Reference For Dummies", 2008)

"A software component created with an interface consisting of a WSDL definition, an XML schema definition, and a WS-Policy definition. Collectively, these could be called a service contract - or, alternatively, an API." (Judith Hurwitz et al, "Service Oriented Architecture For Dummies 2nd Ed.", 2009)

"A software system designed to allow inter-computer interaction over a network to perform a task. Other computers interact with a web service, in a manner prescribed by its interface, using messages which are enclosed in a SOAP envelope and are often conveyed by HTTP. Software applications can use web services to exchange data over a network." (Mark Olive, "SHARE: A European Healthgrid Roadmap", 2009)

"As defined by the W3C, a Web service is a software system designed to support interoperable machine-to-machine interaction over a network. Web services are frequently just Web APIs that can be accessed over a network, such as the Internet, and executed on a remote system hosting the requested services. Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) is most often implemented using Web services, which defines how SOA services interact using the following standards: Extensible Markup Language (XML), Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), Web Services Description Language (WSDL), and Universal Description, Discovery and Integration (UDDI)." (John Goodson & Robert A Steward, "The Data Access Handbook", 2009)

"A set of standards that serves as one possible way of realizing an SOA infrastructure." (David Lyle & John G Schmidt, "Lean Integration", 2010)

"A program running on a network that another program can call for service." (Rod Stephens, "Start Here!™ Fundamentals of Microsoft® .NET Programming", 2011)

"Modular business and consumer applications, delivered over the Internet, that users can select and combine through almost any device, enabling disparate systems to share data and services. These are software systems designed to support machine-to-machine interactions over a network." (Linda Volonino & Efraim Turban, "Information Technology for Management 8th Ed", 2011)

"Platform-neutral, vendor-independent protocols that enable distributed processing to be performed using XML and Web-based technologies. Sometimes instantiated as remote procedure calls in which the request is an XML document." (DAMA International, "The DAMA Dictionary of Data Management", 2011)

"A server-based collections of data, plus a collection of software routines operating on the data, that can be accessed by remote clients. One of the features of Web services is that they permit client users (e.g., humans or software agents) to discover the kinds of data and methods offered by the Web service and the rules for submitting server requests. To access Web services, clients must compose their requests as messages conveyed in a language that the server is configured to accept, a so-called Web services language." (Jules H Berman, "Principles of Big Data: Preparing, Sharing, and Analyzing Complex Information", 2013)

"A software component created with an interface consisting of a WSDL definition, an XML schema definition, and a WS-Policy definition. Collectively, components could be called a service contract or, alternatively, an API." (Marcia Kaufman et al, "Big Data For Dummies", 2013)

"A service that provides a standardized web-based interface so that it is easy to invoke over the Internet." (Rod Stephens, "Beginning Software Engineering", 2015)

"An application-level service that runs on a server and is accessed in a standard way using XML for data marshalling and HTTP as its network transport." (Daniel Leuck et al, "Learning Java" 5th Ed., 2020)

"A set of standards and mechanisms that enables software components to be deployed so that they can be invoked across the Internet or an intranet, with data passed between client and component in the form of text files containing XML. This means the client application does not need to know anything about the language or deployment mechanism of the component it is invoking. Since Web Services is the name of a facility, the term is singular." (Microfocus)

"A software component deployed using the Web Services standards and mechanisms." (Microfocus)

"A Web service is a unit of application logic that provides data and services to other applications, regardless of language or platform, through an Internet connection. Generally, a Web service is exposed by one company so that another company or software program can use that service." (Microfocus)

"Web Services is a technology that enables software components, regardless of the language in which they are written or the platform on which they run, to be accessed by applications across the Internet." (Microfocus)