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SOAP and WebServices

 
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Hi,
What's the difference between SOAP and webservices?
Faisal
 
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Think of web services as the resource you are trying to
invoke, while SOAP is one of the possible ways in which
you can get the data to and from that resource.
SOAP is the transport; Web services is the operation.
 
faisal mahmood
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Is SOAP a protocol for transferring data like TCP/IP, UDP etc?
 
Doug Davis
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SOAP moves over other protocols like HTTP, SMTP...
SOAP defines the syntax (what goes in the xml) how it
moves from one host to another is left up to stuff outside
of SOAP itself (although SOAP does provide some standard
conventions for doing it but those are not manditory).
 
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SOAP is essentially XML and HTTP, it adds some header to HTTP, no other changes. Am I right?
Anne
 
Doug Davis
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Well, for SOAP over HTTP basically yes.
But SOAP is not limited to just HTTP - it can go over any
transport (SMTP, MQ, FTP...).
SOAP just defines what the payload(the message) looks like
not how it gets there.
-Dug
 
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So, we could imagine developing webservices (java servlet responding in xml or JSP generating xml, for example) without having these webservices registered into UDDI registry... so without using SOAP at all.
In the other side, we can use SOAP as a communication layer over JMS or MQseries (with JAXM), without having wevbservices.
am I right ?
 
faisal mahmood
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Is webservices protocol intependant.
I.e. can webservices use IIOP instead of SOAP?
Faisal
 
Doug Davis
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WebServices do not require SOAP. WebServices can pretty much be anything you want as long as its available over a network. Many people so associate WebServices with SOAP but that's just because SOAP is popular at the moment.
-Dug
 
anne lai
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People can use HTTP, CORBA IIOP or SOAP as the protocol to talk to their web server in a web service. It is not because SOAP is popular at the moment, SOAP is better when you need to handle the comunication from the Business partner (or other system) to web server or to another business partner or other system.
Anne
 
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Is there a book that specifically details SOAP? I have seen many books that explains SOAP but not much detail.
 
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See this thread (http://www.javaranch.com/ubb/Forum51/HTML/000019.html) about this week's giveaway
Kyle
------------------
Kyle Brown,
Author of Enterprise Java (tm) Programming with IBM Websphere
See my homepage at http://members.aol.com/kgb1001001 for other WebSphere information.
 
Kyle Brown
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Originally posted by Doug Davis:

WebServices do not require SOAP. WebServices can pretty much be anything you want as long as its available over a network. Many people so associate WebServices with SOAP but that's just because SOAP is popular at the moment.
-Dug


Wait a minute. I have to disagree with this statement. You're redefining Web Services away from the most accepted definition. SOAP is the standard message protocol for Web Services. The idea is that you describe the services in XML and then define the messages in XML also. I don't think you can take SOAP (e.g. defining the messages in XML in a standard way) out of the picture and be left with any meaningful definition of web services.
Kyle

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Kyle Brown,
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See my homepage at http://members.aol.com/kgb1001001 for other WebSphere information.
 
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A book on doing SOAP with Java? Great idea - I am almost finished with mine, to be published by Sybex in late December early Jan if all goes well.
One reason books don't go into much programming detail is that so much of the standard is still up in the air and the various projects keep changing their implementations.
See the activity at the W3C in the XML Protocol group. http://www.w3.org/
Working SOAP examples in Java - see the SOAP and AXIS projects at the Apache organization: http://xml.apache.org
Some more resources http://www.lanw.com/books/javasoap/default.htm
Bill

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Guillaume Compagnon
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Okay, SOAP is meaningfull in order to have a common message/communication layer between webservices.
In another way of thinking about SOAP, I have imagine that we can use SOAP as a fantastic protocol between clients in a Peer2Peer exchange. I know that JXTA project (http://www.jxta.org) works on specifying/implementing a P2P protocol, but don't know how far JXTA is with SOAP
 
faisal mahmood
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It's getting a bit confusing - webservices can exist without SOAP and SOAP can exist without webservices. What if both exist together or none exists?
What advantages can we have only using one, both or none?
Faisal
 
faisal mahmood
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Do you know where I can look at the specifications of WebServices and related technologies? I know that SOAP spec is in W3C site.
Faisal
 
Guillaume Compagnon
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Originally posted by faisal mahmood:
Do you know where I can look at the specifications of WebServices and related technologies? I know that SOAP spec is in W3C site.
Faisal


You ve got the WSDL specification, somewhere
 
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For webservices uddi.org is the best place to start.
Sanjay
 
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are there any competeting protocals to soap in the market
 
BILAL HAMEED
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does the soap specification enjoys industry wide acceptance
 
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Yes!!!
SOAP is accepted by MicroSoft, Sun, IBM and other najor players..
Sridhar

Originally posted by BILAL HAMEED:
does the soap specification enjoys industry wide acceptance


 
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What's the difference between SOAP and webservices?
I think SOAP is a protocol which helps to encapsulate ur XML formats. Assume it as an envelope in which ur XML letter(WSDL definition) is there.
webservice is a service or functionality residing in network which is available to be used by others (applications) over web.
SOAP helps to access the service.
Hope that helps
Any clear explanation is appreciated..
Cheers
Murali
 
William Brogden
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A competing protocol is XML-RPC - a simpler and faster XML protocol that SOAP is derived from. For in-house use in many cases, there is no need to use full blown SOAP.
http://www.xmlrpc.com/ http://classic.helma.at/hannes/xmlrpc/ - a Java implementation of XML-RPC
Bill
 
Kyle Brown
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While XML-RPC is simpler than SOAP in some ways, I wouldn't recommend it, even for in-house development because of the fact that the industry has basically gotten behind SOAP (its successor). You will see more tools and development environments support SOAP, and much of the grunt work that is necessary, even for in-house development (like authorization, etc.) has been done for SOAP, but is not for XML-RPC.
I think it's a matter of which standard to jump on -- one with wide industry support, or another that has some benefits, but that is supported by a much smaller community...
Kyle
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Author of Enterprise Java (tm) Programming with IBM Websphere
See my homepage at http://members.aol.com/kgb1001001 for other WebSphere information.
 
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