Professional ASP.NET Web Services with VB.NET

Please note this is a VB.NET version of our existing book Professional ASP.NET Web Services ISBN 1-86100-545-8

This book will show you how to create high quality Web Services using ASP.NET. It describes the standards that are core to the Web Services architecture and examines how these standards are integrated into ASP.NET. The processes involved in building and consuming Web Services are discussed along with in-depth code examples. The book concludes with three case studies, each examining a different application of Web Services, and presenting a complete solution.

XML-based Web Services are seen by many as the next big step in the progress of distributed computing. Promotion by a range of companies across the computing industry is creating a lot of interest in this emerging set of technologies and standards. Microsoft is one of the leading advocates, building support for Web Services into ASP.NET.

This book covers:

- Building and consuming Web Services in ASP.NET

- Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP)

- Web Services Description Language (WSDL)

- Discovering Web Services with UDDI

- Exposing data sources through Web Services

- Performance techniques

- Securing Web Services

- Transactional Web Services

- .NET My Services (Hailstorm)

This book is for intermediate or experienced ASP.NET programmers who want to take advantage of the opportunities that are presented by Web Services standards.

Web Services are being hailed as a leap forward in distributed computing. Web Services evangelists foresee a future where functionality can be programmatically discovered and accessed over the Internet, as and when it is required. Of course, some commentators disagree, seeing Web Services as nothing more than a standardized iteration of older distributed computing systems.

Whether or not we see Web Services as a big step or a small evolution, we must all agree that they are generating a lot of interest. The technologies and standards behind Web Services are being adopted by a wide range of companies in the computing industry. At the forefront of the drive for acceptance of these standards are IBM, Sun Microsystems, and Microsoft.

ASP.NET makes exposing functionality through a Web Service very straightforward. That is not to say, however, that there is little to learn about developing Web Services in ASP.NET. Although Web Services can be seen as an evolution of previous distributed computing standards, they do have new considerations which must be taken into account if we are to harness their full potential.

The code and syntax examples in the book are all in VB.NET.