Introduction of SOAP Architecture

Simplified Object Access Protocol (SOAP) is a specification that enables applications to communicate with other applications. It provides a framework for connecting Web sites and applications to create Web services. These Web services link different sites and applications together to perform functions that the individual components or sites are not capable of. SOAP provides a mechanism by which each service can expose its features and communicate with other services. Using SOAP, one can link services offered by different systems together as components and use these components to build a complex information system application in a much shorter timeframe.

High-Level diagram of SOAP in a distributed system

Advantages of SOAP
1. SOAP is an open standard that is built upon open technologies such as XML and HTTP. It is not vendor-specific and therefore less intimidating to smaller players in the industry. As a result it is being accepted uniformly by the industry, thus improving its chances of being the de-facto standard for true distributed interoperability.
2. SOAP based distributed systems are loosely-coupled. As a result they are easier to maintain because they can be modified independently of other systems.
3. When used over HTTP protocol, SOAP packets can easily bypass firewalls if their content is not deemed malicious.

Disadvantages of SOAP
1. SOAP’s relied on HTTP for transport of XML data in the version 1.0 of its specification. HTTP requires a stateless request/response architecture that is not appropriate under all circumstances. While one can work around the state problem it requires additional coding.
2. All SOAP data is serialized and passed by value and currently there is no provision for passing data by reference. This could lead to synchronization problems if multiple copies of the same object are being passed at the same time.

SOAP Architecture