What is Oracle Native web services?

Native web services is a new feature of the XML DB technology. In google i found that it`s very close to SOA.

Can anyone simply explain: 1) what is the main usage of Native web services 2) what is the main difference of XML DB 11g and previous XML DB releases.

Thanks.

I found documentation. It was hard )

What's New In Oracle XML DB?

New features:

• Binary XML
• XMLIndex
• XMLType OCTs Now Use Heap Storage Instead of IOTs
• Default Value of XML Schema Annotation storeVarrayAsTable Is Now true
• Repository Events
• Support for Content Repository API for Java (JCR: JSR-170)
• New Repository Resource Link Types
• Support for WebDAV Privileges and New Oracle XML DB Privileges
• Web Services
• In-Place XML Schema Evolution
• Support for Recursive XML Schemas
• Support for XLink and XInclude
• Support for XML Translations
• Support for Large XML Nodes
• Unified Java API
• Oracle Data Pump Support for XMLType
• Support for XMLType by Oracle Streams and Logical Standby
• Oracle XDK Pull-Parser API (XML Events, JSR-173)
• XQuery Standard Compliance
• Fine-Grained Access to Network Services Using PL/SQL
• SQL/XML Standard Compliance and Performance Enhancements
• XML-Update Performance Enhancements
• XQuery and SQL/XML Performance Enhancements
• XSLT Performance Enhancements

And about web services.

Web services provide a standard way for applications to exchange information over the Internet and access services that implement business logic. Your applications can access Oracle Database using native Oracle XML DB Web services. One available service lets you issue SQL and XQuery queries and receive results as XML data. Another service provides access to all PL/SQL stored functions and procedures. You can customize the input and output document formats when you use the latter service; the WSDL is automatically generated by the native database Web services engine.

SOAP 1.1 is the version supported by Oracle XML DB. Applications use the HTTP POST method to submit SOAP requests to native Oracle XML DB Web services. You can configure the locations of all native Oracle XML DB Web services and WSDL documents using the Oracle XML DB configuration file, xdbconfig.xml. You can also configure security settings for the Web services using the same configuration file.