Software Engineering Institute

Web service technologies (or Web services) are experiencing a growing popularity in U.S. Department of Defense, industry, and non-defense government organizations due to their potential to enable interoperability between applications implemented on different platforms. This potential stems from Web services being based on standards that have been widely accepted and implemented, such as the Simple Object Access Protocol and the Web Services Description Language. The large number of products and tools created to facilitate the development of Web services has also contributed to their popularity. This technical note presents the results of applying the model problem approach in an initial investigation of the potential of Web services to enable interoperability.