Discuss how Web services can be used to effectively integrate business applications and data. Search the Web for resources on current Web services that employ XML, SOAP, UDDI, and WSDL. Find at least three and discuss how each is used, including examples from industry.
It is important to use web services in business as it-
Helps exposing business functionality to the end user or client on the network which can be accessed from anywhere.
It allow various applications to talk to each other through codes which do not have to be generated again and again and share data and services among themselves
Web services use some standardized industry and business protocol for the communication which makes it easier to use.
It also reduces the cost of communication with help of SOAP
A Web service is an application that has industry-standard protocols which requires using Web Services Description Language (WSDL) and sent to the application using Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) over HTTP (or HTTPS). XML is required for encoding all the communications to a web service. Web service manages all types of communication with it clients in program interface (API). In a web service XML is used to tag the data, SOAP helps to transfer a message and WSDL is used to describe the availability of service.
Here are some of the examples
Google provides web service interface to public search engine, plagiarism, subject monitoring and market research
Kinko's that allows you to send documents from your PC directly to Kinko's for printing also uses the web service
Amazon business model is also based on web service for online catalogs and consumer sales interface. it also helps to add new features using the web service.