Understanding Web Services with UDDI

What is UDDI (Universal Description, Discovery and Integration)

There are four layers in the Web Services Protocal Stack, one of these is Service Discovery. This fourth layer is made up with what we call UDDI (Universal Description, Discovery and Integration) web services. In a UDDI registry you can find company information as well as all web services offered by a commpany. These UDDI registries reside on what is known as a UDDI server. Think of this as a sort of a computerized Yellow Pages where you can go to look up information about a company. UDDI can also refer to a generic group of technical standards which are used to register businesses and create these sort of registries.

Diving Deeper Into UDDI

This job as a standard of technical specifications for registering businesses and web services that is most important. UDDI is still somewhat in its infancy stage and not everyone has begun to implement these standards, but it has set up a blueprint for the future development of web services.

Pretty much everything that has to do with web services utilizes XML (Extensible Markup Language). It is in XML that UDDI data is stored. Using XML allows UDDI registries simple to use interoperability between computers regardless of platforms. (For example, data can be passed between users on a Linux machine and a Windows machine with ease). This ability is possible not only with UDDI but with web services in general. This is part of the reason for the popularity of web services.

Like everything else that has to do with web services, UDDI consists of data stored in an XML (Extensible Markup Language) format. This gives UDDI registries interoperability between any combination of servers without regard to specific platforms. This ability is key to the usefulness not only of UDDI but web services in general.

But the web services UDDI has stored would be unfindable if there were not ways to retrieve the data. UDDI also contains the API (Application Program Interface) details which allow not only for the retrieval of old data but the publishing of new data within the UDDI system.

UDDI Business Registry