On the server side, the various programming languages and middleware technologies at work behind each application or data source become transparent to programmers, so it is a lot easier for them to develop applications. The data standard for TCP/IP is XML, a set of syntax rules for adding meaning to data and for building other XML standards. The process standards are actually a set of evolving XML standards: .

             SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol), for packaging messages from one software application to another, A set of rules that facilitate XML exchange between applications. Along with WSDL, SOAP performs message transport functions. ("Putting Web Services in a "No Spin Zone", 2004).

             WSDL (Web Services Description Language)A common framework for describing tasks performed by a Web service. Suppliers, for example, could discover what kinds of information a company's inventory system offered them-nothing more than a bare indication that inventory was approaching zero, for example, or possible due dates as well. .

             UDDI (Universal Description, Discovery and IntegrationA set of specifications for creating XML-based directories of Web services offerings. Much as callers consult the Yellow Pages for the telephone numbers of businesses, users of and applications for Web services may find them through these directories. Message transport The actual workings of web services can be described from a provider's and a user's perspective. From a provider's perspective, a web service is created by using the data, process, and communication standards identified above to create a web interface to one or more software applications. Most of the web services described above provide data from a database in response to specific request parameters. In essence, a web service responds to a "get data" command by reading the data from a database and sending it back to a software application on the Internet.