Question about designing a Web Service

[Julia Beresford]

Hi

I have a VB .NET class library with classes and collection classes (classes
that implement ICollection) that allow a client to read and write data to and
from an SQL database. For example if I had a table of Things I would have a
Things collection class with an Add method that would add a Thing to the
collection but also add that as a new record in the database.

Now I want to expose this functionality via a Web Service. However it does
not seem so straight forward converting my class structure to web services
(i.e. problems serializing ICollection interface, etc). So my questions are:

What is the best practice for designing Web Services for complicated data
structures? (I’m sure I’m doing nothing ground breaking and I’m interested in
implementing a sound solution rather than just something that I can ‘get to
work’)

Can anyone recommend a good reference book (all the examples, etc I have are
very simplistic). And also something that tells me what is and isn't
possible with a Web Service.

Many thanks for any information or thoughts on this.

Julia.