Introduction > What is a Web Service?

A Web service is a collection of software "methods" that can be invoked (called) through a network by a client application using the SOAP protocol. Methods typically accept one or more parameters, perform some action and return one or more parameters.

 

An example of a Web service might be a "BankingService" that provides methods such as "getAccountBalance", "debitAccount" and "creditAccount". For example, the "getAccountBalance" method might require an "accountNumber" parameter as input and return a "balance" parameter as output.