Top 20 web services interview questions

and answers
Tell me about yourself?

This is probably the most asked

question in web services interview. It
breaks the ice and gets you to talk
about something you should be fairly
comfortable with. Have something
prepared that doesn't sound rehearsed.
It's not about you telling your life story
and quite frankly, the interviewer just
isn't interested. Unless asked to do so,
stick to your education, career and
current situation. Work through it
chronologically from the furthest back
to the present.

Define Web Service?

A web service is a kind of software that
is accessible on the Internet. It makes
use of the XML messaging system and
offers an easy to understand, interface
for the end users.

What Can You Do for Us That Other Candidates

Can't?
What makes you unique? This
will take an assessment of
your experiences, skills and
traits. Summarize concisely:
"I have a unique combination
of strong technical skills, and
the ability to build strong
customer relationships. This
allows me to use my
knowledge and break down
information to be more userfriendly."

Give me an example of real web service?

One example of web services is IBM
Web Services browser. You can get it
from IBM Alphaworks site. This
browser shows various demos related to
web services. Basically web services
can be used with the help of SOAP,
WSDL, and UDDI . All these, provide a
plug-and-play interface for using web
services such as stock-quote service, a
traffic-report service, weather service
etc.

How you define web service protocol stack?

It is basically set of various
protocols that can be used to explore
and execute web services. The entire
stack has four layers i.e. Service
Transport, XML Messaging, Service
Description and Service Discovery.

Can you define each of these layers of protocol

stack?
The Service Transport layer transfer
messages between different
applications, such as HTTP, SMTP,
FTP, and Blocks Extensible Exchange
Protocol (BEEP). The XML
Messaging layer encodes messages in
XML format so that messages can be
understood at each end, such as
XML-RPC and SOAP. The Service
Description layer describes the user
interface to a web service, such as
WSDL. The Service Discovery layer
centralizes services to a common
registry and offer simple publish
functionality, such as UDDI.

Discuss various approaches to develop SOAP

based web service?
We can develop SOAP based web
service with two different types of
approaches such as contract-first and
contract-last. In the first approach, the
contract is defined first and then the
classes are derived from the contract
while in the later one, the classes are
defined first and then the contract is
derived from these classes.

Name browser that allows access to web

service?
JavaScript XmlHttpRequest object is
required to access web service via
browsers. The browsers that support this
object are Internet Explorer, Safari and
Mozilla-based browsers like FireFox.

How can you document web service?

Web services are contemplated as selfdocumenting because they provide
entire information regarding the
available methods and parameters used
for XML based standard, known as
WSDL. One can also provide more
information to explain web services
via their own WebService and
WebMethod attributes.

What are the situations, when we need ASP.NET

web services?
ASP.NET web services are used when
one need to implement three tier
architecture in a web service. It allows
handy ways to use middle tier
components through internet. The main
advantage of .NET Web services is that
they are capable enough to communicate
across firewalls because they use SOAP
as transport protocol.

Differentiate between web services, CORBA and

DCOM?
Web services transfer/receive messages
to/from application respectively, via HTTP
protocol. It uses XML to encode data.
CORBA and DCOM transfer/receive
messages to/from application respectively,
via non-standard protocols such as IIOP
and RPC.

Can you tell few benefits of web services?

The biggest advantage of web
service is that is supported by
wide variety of platforms.
Moreover, in near future, web
services may spread its boundary
and enhance new methods that
will provide ease to clients. The
enhancement will not affect the
clients, even if they offer old
methods and parameters

Can you name some standards used in web

services?
The standards used in web services are
WSDL (used to create interface definition),
SOAP (used to structure data), HTTP
(communication channels), DISCO (used to
create discovery documents) and UDDI
(used to create business registries).

Explain in brief, what DISCO is?

DISCO means discovery. It groups the list
of interrelated web services. The
organization that provides web services,
issues a DISCO file on its server and that
file contains the links of all the provided
web services. This standard is good when
client knows the company already. Also it
can be used within a local network as well.

Explain in brief, what UDDI is?

UDDI (Universal Description,
Discovery, and Integration) provides
consolidated directory for web services
on the internet. Clients use UDDI to
find web services as per their business
needs. It basically hosts the web
services from various companies. In
order to share web services, you need
to publish it in UDDI.

Explain the .NET web services supported data

types?
Net web services uses XML-based
standards to transfer/receive
information. Thus, .NET web services
can only works with data types known
by XML schema standard. Like
FileSteam, Eventlog etc. are not
recognized by the XML schema
standards and hence, not supported in
web services.

How a .NET web service is consumed?

Since we know that web services are
constructed on XML standards.
Therefore, clients need to have
complete understanding of XML-based
messages to interchange messages.
Clients can communicate with web
services through .NET framework that
offers proxy mechanisms. These proxy
mechanisms have detailed information
regarding data sharing within web
services that can be easily used by the
clients.

Differentiate between .NET Web Services and

.NET Remoting?
As far as protocol is concerned, .NET
Web Service uses HTTP, while, .NET
Remoting uses any protocol i.e.
TCP/HTTP/SMTP. When it comes to
performance, .NET Remoting is
comparatively, faster than.NET Web
Service. Also, as .NET Web Services
are hosted via IIS, therefore, it is far
more reliable than the .NET Remoting.

Explain few disadvantages of Response

Caching?
Response Caching is useless or
incompetent when method accepts
extensive amount of values because
caching means to store lot of
information. Also, if the method
depends on external source of
information, and that are not provided
within the parameters then such
methods are bypassed.

what is rest protocol ?

REST stands for Representational State
Transfer. (It is sometimes spelled "ReST".)
EST is a lightweight alternative to
mechanisms like RPC (Remote Procedure
Calls) and Web Services (SOAP, WSDL, et
al.). Later, we will see how much more
simple REST is.
Despite being simple, REST is fullyfeatured; there's basically nothing you can
do in Web Services that can't be done with a
RESTful architecture.
REST is not a "standard". There will never
be a W3C recommendation for REST, for
example. And while there are REST
programming frameworks, working with
REST is so simple that you can often "roll
your own" with standard library features in
languages like Perl, Java, or C#.

Top 6 tips for job interview

Tip 1: Do your homework

You'll likely be asked difficult questions

during the interview. Preparing the list of
likely questions in advance will help you
easily transition from question to question.
Spend time researching the company. Look
at its site to understand its mission statement,
product offerings, and management team. A
few hours spent researching before your
interview can impress the hiring manager
greatly. Read the company's annual report
(often posted on the site), review the
employee's LinkedIn profiles, and search the
company on Google News, to see if they've
been mentioned in the media lately. The
more you know about a company, the more
you'll know how you'll fit in to it.

Tip 2: First impressions

When meeting someone for the first time, we

instantaneously make our minds about various aspects of
their personality.
Prepare and plan that first impression long before you
walk in the door. Continue that excellent impression in
the days following, and that job could be yours.
Therefore:
Never arrive late.
Use positive body language and turn on your
charm right from the start.
Switch off your mobile before you step into the
room.
Look fabulous; dress sharp and make sure you look
your best.
Start the interview with a handshake; give a nice
firm press and then some up and down movement.
Determine to establish a rapport with the
interviewer right from the start.
Always let the interviewer finish speaking before
giving your response.
Express yourself fluently with clarity and
precision.

Tip 3: The Hidden Job Market

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Many of us dont recognize that hidden job

market is a huge one and accounts for 2/3
of total job demand from enterprises. This
means that if you know how to exploit a
hidden job market, you can increase your
chance of getting the job up to 300%.
In this section, the author shares his
experience and useful tips to exploit hidden
job market.
Here are some sources to get penetrating
into a hidden job market: Friends; Family;
Ex-coworkers; Referral; HR communities;
Field communities; Social networks such
as Facebook, Twitter; Last recruitment
ads from recruiters; HR emails of potential
recruiters

Tip 4: Do-It-Yourself Interviewing Practice

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There are a number of ways to prepare

for an interview at home without the
help of a professional career counselor
or coach or a fee-based service.
You can practice interviews all by
yourself or recruit friends and family to
assist you.

Tip 5: Ask questions

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Do not leave the interview without

ensuring that you know all that you
want to know about the position. Once
the interview is over, your chance to
have important questions answered has
ended. Asking questions also can show
that you are interested in the job. Be
specific with your questions. Ask about
the company and the industry. Avoid
asking personal questions of the
interviewer and avoid asking questions
pertaining to politics, religion and the
like.

Tip 6: Follow up and send a thank-you note

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Following up after an interview can

help you make a lasting impression and
set you apart from the crowd.
Philip Farina, CPP, a security career
expert at Manta Security Management
Recruiters, says: "Send both an email as
well as a hard-copy thank-you note,
expressing excitement, qualifications
and further interest in the position.
Invite the hiring manager to contact you
for additional information. This is also
an excellent time to send a strategic
follow-up letter of interest."