This work describes a generic database service for the lightweight Venice Service Grid, which has been developed at the University of Kaiserslautern, Germany. By using Web services any SQL query can be processed and the corresponding result sets are sent back as strongly typed XML documents. The accurately defined interface allows an easy-to-use, platform and programming language independent access to all applications of a service federation. Transactions, prepared statements and parallel transfers of split result sets are supported, too. Because of a JDBC-like programming interface, the service can be used intuitively and existing software components can be quickly adjusted to the new system.