Web services are the ideal technology if you want to deploy and consume services and functionality over the web in a secure, platform-independent manner. Examples include stock reports, timetable data, and banking credentials. "Beginning ASP.NET 2.0 Web Services in C#" covers the latest Microsoft technologies like the .NET 2.0 platform, C# language, and Visual Studio 2005 for developing web services. Authors Sean Iannuzzi, Allen Jones and Adam Freeman carefully emphasize security, which is the most important consideration for developers who strive to make their web services practical and useful. Written in a classic, tutorial-based style, this book begins with the basic functionality behind web services, and then gives an overview of Visual Studio 2005 and how web services fit into it. The authors then show you how to build a basic but secure web service, build SOAP and HTTP clients, debug your web services, add exception handling, consume web services, and deploy them for others to utilize in their web pages. This book also touches on advanced web services topics like advanced security techniques, proxy creation, state management, and more. While it's recommended that you have some prior knowledge of these technologies, it's not essential.