<<Web services are extremely helpful in simplifying integration, and they balance flexibility and interoperability. While these characteristics are beneficial, they alone don't prevent complex "spaghetti" integration. Web services are neutral; there are basic ways to implement Web services and better ways to implement them.
Suppose a developer builds an application to provide a bank with credit risk data about customers. Part of the application relies on census data (e.g., average income and age group). Due to mergers, this bank has two systems that contain customer credit data (PeopleSoft and SAP) and each has different services. A problem the developer must solve is: "Get average income for people living near this address." Even though our developer is using Web services to obtain census data, he still must know many things about the applications. Immediately, the task becomes difficult. To extract the correct data from each system, the developer must know the existing application structure, application security requirements, appropriate metadata, and transaction management aspects—attributes unique to each application.>> You can read this article in full if you go to: http://www.bijonline.com/index.cfm?section=article&aid=794# Gervas
