15.5. Summary

Web services enable developers to work with data from databases other than Access and SQL Server. They also make data that would be normally be off limits to outside systems available. Web services pass the data via XML to both Web- and desktop-based applications.

Visual Studio .NET can be used to create Web services, and it performs quite a bit of the work in creating the project. You can use the language of your choice, for example C# or Visual Basic .NET, with ASP.NET. In addition, .NET provides ADO.NET classes for manipulation of data within your Web services.

InfoPath interfaces with Web services the same as it would Access and SQL Server, using the Data Connection Wizard.