Web services have the following special behavioral characteristics −

• XML-Based − Web Services uses XML at data representation and data transportation layers.

• Loosely Coupled − A consumer of a web service is not tied to that web service directly.

• Coarse-Grained − Businesses and the interfaces that they expose should be coarse-grained. Web services technology provides a natural way of defining coarse-grained services that access the right amount of business logic.

• Ability to be Synchronous or Asynchronous − Asynchronous clients retrieve their result at a later point in time, while synchronous clients receive their result when the service has completed. Asynchronous capability is a key factor in enabling loosely coupled systems.

• Supports Remote Procedure Calls(RPCs) − A web service supports RPC by providing services of its own, equivalent to those of a traditional component, or by translating incoming invocations into an invocation of an EJB or a .NET component.

• Supports Document Exchange − Web services support the transparent exchange of documents to facilitate business integration.