A Web service, in the context of .NET, is a component that resides on a Web server and provides information and services to other network applications using standard Web protocols such as HTTP and Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP).
In the context of ASP.NET interview questions, the correct answer to “What is a web service?” would be:
“A web service is a method of communication between two electronic devices over a network. It is a software system designed to support interoperable machine-to-machine interaction over a network. In the context of ASP.NET, web services typically utilize the SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) or REST (Representational State Transfer) protocols to exchange data between client and server. These services can be accessed over the internet or an intranet, and they provide a standardized way for different applications to communicate with each other regardless of the platform or programming language they are built on.”