SOAP Introduction
SOAP is a simple XML-based protocol to let applications
exchange information over HTTP.
Or more simply: SOAP is a protocol for accessing a Web Service.
What You Should Already Know
Before you study SOAP you should have a basic understanding of XML and XML Namespaces.
If you want to study these subjects first, please read our XML Tutorial.
What is SOAP?
- SOAP stands for Simple Object Access Protocol
- SOAP is a communication protocol
- SOAP is for communication between applications
- SOAP is a format for sending messages
- SOAP communicates via Internet
- SOAP is platform independent
- SOAP is language independent
- SOAP is based on XML
- SOAP is simple and extensible
- SOAP allows you to get around firewalls
- SOAP is a W3C recommendation
Why SOAP?
It is important for application development to allow Internet communication between
programs.
Today's applications communicate using Remote Procedure Calls (RPC) between objects
like DCOM and CORBA, but HTTP was not designed for this. RPC represents a compatibility
and security problem; firewalls and proxy servers will
normally block this kind of traffic.
A better way to communicate between applications is over HTTP,
because HTTP is supported by all Internet browsers and
servers. SOAP was created to accomplish this.
SOAP provides a way to communicate between applications running on different
operating systems, with different technologies and programming
languages.
SOAP is a W3C Recommendation
SOAP became a W3C Recommendation 24. June 2003.
To read more about the SOAP activities at W3C, please read our
W3C Tutorial.
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