Web Services are platform-independent, XML-based services that expose business functionality for direct application-to-application integration. They are built on top of open standards such as TCP/IP, HTTP, Java, HTML and XML, and the primary protocol for communication is SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol).

Web Services are the perfect building block for the creation of a SOA (Service Oriented Architecture), for integration platforms and for the composite applications.

Customers prefer the convenience of using the Web Services because it cuts the time it takes to design, develop, test and deploy interfaces for integration purposes. It reduces the cost of building, managing and maintaining the interfaces.