Web Services: Benefits, Challenges, and a Unique Visual Development Solution

Today, the ability to seamlessly exchange information between internal business units, customers, and partners is vital for success; yet most organizations employ a variety of disparate applications that store and exchange data in dissimilar ways and therefore cannot "talk" to one another productively. Web services have evolved as a practical, cost-effective solution for uniting information distributed between critical applications over operating system, platform, and language barriers that were previously impassable.

This white paper introduces the concept of Web services and identifies the benefits and challenges associated with their implementation. It then discusses how Altova's visual approach to Web services design and implementation can reduce the complexity of Web services development, allowing organizations to quickly reap the benefits of this powerful technology.