This volume is written for Perl programmers who have no prior knowledge of Web services. No understanding of XML-RPC or SOAP is necessary to be able to apply these technologies easily, through the use of publicly available Perl modules detailed in the book. Given Perl's natural fit for Web applications development, Perl is also a natural choice for Web services development. It's the most popular Web programming language, with strong implementations of both SOAP and XML-RPC, the leading ways to distribute applications using Web services. This book aims to change that, bringing Perl users all the information they need to create Web services using Perl. The book concentrates on what is useful and practical. It introduces the major Web services standards, such as XML-RPC, SOAP, WSDL, and UDDI, and shows how to implement Perl servers and clients using these standards. You'll find detailed references on both the XML and SOAP toolkits, and learn when to use one technology in favour of the other. The book is rich with programming examples that you'll find useful well past the learning stage. And, moving beyond the basics, the book offers solutions to problems of security, authentication, and scalability. Some of the topics covered in the book are: HTTP and XML basics; XML-RPC and the toolkits; SOAP and toolkitsp; SOAP::Lite; using SOAP with SMTP and other protocols; advertising and the REST methodology; and the future of Web services.