Best-selling programming book author Kris Jamsa tackles the hottest new topic for .NET developers: the creation of web services for high-powered cross-platform application development. This solutions-oriented book gives you the background you need to understand the concept of web services and then quickly moves into showing you how to publish and consume web services. You learn to how to use existing web services, how to make your .NET web service available to others, how to connect a web service to a database, and how to secure a web service. There is also special advanced coverage of creating mobile solutions and improving the performance of your web services. The book contains plenty of code examples that you can implement in your own applications, including web services that can be consumed by other languages, such as PHP and Perl.