As an example of what SOAP procedures can do, an application can send a SOAP request to a server that has web services enabled—such as a real-estate price database—with the parameters for a search. The server then returns a SOAP response (an XML-formatted document) with the resulting data, e.g., prices, location, features. Since the generated data comes in a standardized machine-parsable format, the requesting application can then integrate it directly.
The SOAP architecture consists of several layers of specifications for:
SOAP evolved as a successor ofXML-RPC, though it borrows its transport and interaction neutrality from Web Service Addressing[2] and the envelope/header/body from elsewhere (probably fromWDDX).[citation needed]
SOAP was designed as an object-access protocol and released asXML-RPC in June 1998 as part ofFrontier 5.1 byDave Winer,Don Box, Bob Atkinson, and Mohsen Al-Ghosein forMicrosoft, where Atkinson and Al-Ghosein were working.[3] The specification was not made available until it was submitted toIETF 13 September 1999.[4][5] According to Don Box, this was due to politics within Microsoft.[6] Because of Microsoft's hesitation, Dave Winer shippedXML-RPC in 1998.[7]
The submittedInternet Draft did not reachRFC status and is therefore not considered a "web standard" as such. Version 1.1 of the specification was published as a W3C Note on 8 May 2000.[8] Since version 1.1 did not reachW3C Recommendation status, it can not be considered a "web standard" either. Version 1.2 of the specification, however, became aW3C recommendation on June 24, 2003.SOAP originally stood for "Simple Object Access Protocol" but version 1.2 of the standard dropped this acronym.[9]
The SOAP specification[10] was maintained by the XML Protocol Working Group[11] of theWorld Wide Web Consortium until the group was closed 10 July 2009.
After SOAP was first introduced, it became the underlying layer of a more complex set ofweb services, based onWSDL,XSD andUDDI. These different services, especially UDDI, have proved to be of far less interest,[citation needed] but an appreciation of them gives a complete understanding of the expected role of SOAP compared to how web services have actually evolved.[according to whom?]
SOAP specification can be broadly defined to be consisting of the following three conceptual components: protocol concepts, encapsulation concepts and network concepts.[12]
This is a set of rules formalizing and governing the format and processing rules for information exchanged between a SOAP sender and a SOAP receiver.
SOAP nodes
These are physical/logical machines with processing units which are used to transmit/forward, receive and process SOAP messages. These are analogous tonodes in a network.
SOAP roles
Over the path of a SOAP message, all nodes assume a specific role. The role of the node defines the action that the node performs on the message it receives. For example, a role "none" means that no node will process the SOAP header in any way and simply transmit the message along its path.
SOAP protocol binding
A SOAP message needs to work in conjunction with other protocols to be transferred over a network. For example, a SOAP message could useTCP as a lower layer protocol to transfer messages. These bindings are defined in the SOAP protocol binding framework.[13]
SOAP features
SOAP provides a messaging framework only. However, it can be extended to add features such as reliability, security etc. There are rules to be followed when adding features to the SOAP framework.
SOAP module
A collection of specifications regarding the semantics of SOAP header to describe any new features being extended upon SOAP. A module needs to realize zero or more features. SOAP requires modules to adhere to prescribed rules.[14]
Represents the information being exchanged between 2 SOAP nodes.
SOAP envelope
It is the enclosing element of an XML message identifying it as a SOAP message.
SOAP header block
A SOAP header can contain more than one of these blocks, each being a discrete computational block within the header. In general, the SOAProle information is used to target nodes on the path. A header block is said to be targeted at a SOAP node if the SOAP role for the header block is the name of a role in which the SOAP node operates. (ex: A SOAP header block with role attribute asultimateReceiver is targeted only at the destination node which has this role. A header with a role attribute asnext is targeted at each intermediary as well as the destination node.)
SOAP header
A collection of one or more header blocks targeted at each SOAP receiver.
SOAP body
Contains the body of the message intended for the SOAP receiver. The interpretation and processing of SOAP body is defined by header blocks.
SOAP fault
In case a SOAP node fails to process a SOAP message, it adds the fault information to the SOAP fault element. This element is contained within the SOAP body as a child element.
The node receiving a SOAP message. (Could be an intermediary or the destination node).
SOAP message path
The path consisting of all the nodes that the SOAP message traversed to reach the destination node.
Initial SOAP sender
This is the node which originated the SOAP message to be transmitted. This is the root of the SOAP message path.
SOAP intermediary
All the nodes in between the SOAP originator and the intended SOAP destination. It processes the SOAP header blocks targeted at it and acts to forward a SOAP message towards an ultimate SOAP receiver.
Ultimate SOAP receiver
The destination receiver of the SOAP message. This node is responsible for processing the message body and any header blocks targeted at it.
The SOAP specification defines the messaging framework, which consists of:
TheSOAP processing model, defining the rules for processing a SOAP message[15]
TheSOAP extensibility model defining the concepts of SOAP features and SOAP modules[15]
TheSOAP underlying protocol binding framework describing the rules for defining a binding to an underlying protocol that can be used for exchanging SOAP messages between SOAP nodes[15]
TheSOAP message construct defining the structure of a SOAP message[15]
BothSMTP andHTTP are valid application layer protocols used as transport for SOAP, but HTTP has gained wider acceptance as it works well with today's internet infrastructure; specifically, HTTP works well with networkfirewalls. SOAP may also be used overHTTPS (which is the same protocol as HTTP at the application level, but uses anencrypted transport protocol underneath) with either simple or mutual authentication; this is the advocatedWS-I method to provide web service security as stated in theWS-I Basic Profile 1.1.
This is a major advantage over other distributed protocols likeGIOP/IIOP orDCOM, which are normally filtered by firewalls. SOAP overAMQP is yet another possibility that some implementations support. SOAP also has an advantage overDCOM that it is unaffected by security rights configured on the machines that require knowledge of both transmitting and receiving nodes. This lets SOAP be loosely coupled in a way that is not possible withDCOM. There is also theSOAP-over-UDPOASIS standard.
XML Information Set was chosen as the standard message format because of its widespread use by major corporations andopen source development efforts. Typically, XML Information Set isserialized asXML. A wide variety of freely availabletools significantly eases the transition to a SOAP-based implementation. The somewhat lengthysyntax ofXML can be both a benefit and a drawback. While it facilitates error detection and avoids interoperability problems such as byte-order (endianness), it can slow processing speed and can be cumbersome. For example,CORBA,GIOP,ICE, andDCOM use much shorter, binary message formats. On the other hand, hardware appliances are available to accelerate processing ofXML messages.[16][17]Binary XML is also being explored as a means for streamlining the throughput requirements of XML.XML messages by their self-documenting nature usually have more 'overhead' (e.g., headers, nested tags, delimiters) than actual data in contrast to earlier protocols where the overhead was usually a relatively small percentage of the overall message.
In financial messaging SOAP was found to result in a 2–4 times larger message than previous protocolsFIX (Financial Information Exchange) andCDR (Common Data Representation).[18]
XML Information Set does not have to be serialized in XML. For instance, CSV andJSON XML-infoset representations exist. There is also no need to specify a generic transformation framework. The concept of SOAP bindings allows for specific bindings for a specific application. The drawback is that both the senders and receivers have to support this newly defined binding.
SOAP's neutrality characteristic explicitly makes it suitable for use with any transport protocol. Implementations often use HTTP as a transport protocol, but other popular transport protocols can be used. For example, SOAP can also be used over SMTP,JMS[19][20] andmessage queues.
SOAP, when combined with HTTP post/response exchanges, tunnels easily through existing firewalls and proxies, and consequently doesn't require modifying the widespread computing and communication infrastructures that exist for processing HTTP post/response exchanges.
SOAP has available to it all the facilities of XML, including easy internationalization and extensibility with XML Namespaces.
When using standard implementation and the default SOAP/HTTP binding, the XML infoset is serialized as XML. To improve performance for the special case of XML with embedded binary objects, theMessage Transmission Optimization Mechanism was introduced.
When relying on HTTP as a transport protocol and not usingWeb Services Addressing or anEnterprise Service Bus, the roles of the interacting parties are fixed. Only one party (the client) can use the services of the other.
SOAP is less "simple" than the name would suggest. The verbosity of the protocol, low parsing speed of XML, and lack of a standardized interaction model led to the dominance of services using theHTTP protocol more directly. See, for example,REST.
Being protocol-agnostic, SOAP is unable to take advantage of protocol-specific features and optimizations such asREST's Uniform Interface orcaching – instead having to reimplement them (as withWS-Addressing).
^Hirsch, Frederick; Kemp, John; Ilkka, Jani (2007-01-11).Mobile Web Services: Architecture and Implementation. John Wiley & Sons (published 2007). p. 27.ISBN9780470032596. Retrieved2014-09-15.Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) defines a messaging envelope structure designed to carry application payload in one portion of the envelope (the message body) and control information in another (the message header).
