Chapter 5: Modernizing SOAP Services

SOAP (short for Simple Object Access Protocol) is an XML-based protocol for accessing web services over HTTP. SOAP web services started gaining traction somewhere in the early first decade of the 21st century. Numerous standards were developed, especially in the following decade, which allowed the overall web services to mature, especially the SOAP-style web services. Some of the notable ancillary standards designed to support these SOAP web services are Universal Description, Discovery and Integration (UDDI), Message Transmission Optimization Mechanism (MTOM), WS-Attachments, WS-Security, WS-Trust, and WS-Policy. Many organizations still support SOAP web services because of SOAP's long history (after all, history is relative!) and the development and support of these standards by major software vendors.

Though the new development of web services has given way to REST-style services, SOAP services continue to provide many essential business...