We are often asked by people who are trying to understand the value Grid
technology brings to Web services, "What is the significance of Grid
services? They look like Web services." The answer to this question is
superficially straightforward: mechanically, the differences between Grid
services (as defined in the Open Grid Services Infrastructure [OGSI] V.1.0
specification) and Web services are few: a Grid service is simply a Web
service that conforms to a particular set of conventions. For example, Grid
services are defined in terms of standard WSDL (Web Services Definition
Language) with minor extensions, and exploit standard Web service binding
technologies such as SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) and WS-Security
(Web Services Security). So yes, Grid services do ... (more)