Is SOAP for enterprise computing?

[vishnu kumar <wi...@india.com>]

My undertanding is SOAP does not enforce underlying wire protocol. But the
current implementation seems to support only HTTP. In an enterprise
environment there could be other wire protocols (RMI/IIOP/DCOM) that would
be primarily supported without going through Web servers. Is there any other
implementation suppporting other protocols? What is apache's plan for this?

thanks

vishnu


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Re: Is SOAP for enterprise computing?

[david boreham <da...@boreham.org>]

> My undertanding is SOAP does not enforce underlying wire protocol. But the
> current implementation seems to support only HTTP. In an enterprise
> environment there could be other wire protocols (RMI/IIOP/DCOM) that would
> be primarily supported without going through Web servers. Is there any
other
> implementation suppporting other protocols? What is apache's plan for
this?

This doesn't make much sense to me. SOAP defines an encoding scheme,
which is something which the RPC mechanisms you cite also define.
So there's a layering mismatch implied in your request.

Can you say more about what your specific requirements are, or put the
question another way ? Do you want to expose a SOAP interface to
software you already have which currently exposes an RMI or IIOP or DCOM
interface ? Or the converse ? Or something else ?

Re: Is SOAP for enterprise computing?

[david boreham <da...@boreham.org>]

> My undertanding is SOAP does not enforce underlying wire protocol. But the
> current implementation seems to support only HTTP. In an enterprise
> environment there could be other wire protocols (RMI/IIOP/DCOM) that would
> be primarily supported without going through Web servers. Is there any
other
> implementation suppporting other protocols? What is apache's plan for
this?

This doesn't make much sense to me. SOAP defines an encoding scheme,
which is something which the RPC mechanisms you cite also define.
So there's a layering mismatch implied in your request.

Can you say more about what your specific requirements are, or put the
question another way ? Do you want to expose a SOAP interface to
software you already have which currently exposes an RMI or IIOP or DCOM
interface ? Or the converse ? Or something else ?

RE: Is SOAP for enterprise computing?

[Oisin Hurley <oh...@iona.com>]

> My undertanding is SOAP does not enforce underlying wire protocol. But the
> current implementation seems to support only HTTP. In an enterprise
> environment there could be other wire protocols (RMI/IIOP/DCOM) that would
> be primarily supported without going through Web servers. Is
> there any other implementation suppporting other protocols?

Hi Vishnu,
Indeed, SOAP does not enforce a carrier protocol and this is a Good Thing.
This means that we have a load of choice when it somes to moving SOAP
messages around. However, we must be cautious when we come to mixing SOAP
with other protocols and consider what is actually happening.

In the cases of RMI, IIOP and DCOM, there are already standardized ways of
constructing RPC style communications. So using them to deliver SOAP
messages which in turn may deliver RPC is possible, but unproductive.

The one place where things become interesting is (as usual) at the domain
intersection... ;)

 cheers
   --oh

RE: Is SOAP for enterprise computing?

[Oisin Hurley <oh...@iona.com>]

> My undertanding is SOAP does not enforce underlying wire protocol. But the
> current implementation seems to support only HTTP. In an enterprise
> environment there could be other wire protocols (RMI/IIOP/DCOM) that would
> be primarily supported without going through Web servers. Is
> there any other implementation suppporting other protocols?

Hi Vishnu,
Indeed, SOAP does not enforce a carrier protocol and this is a Good Thing.
This means that we have a load of choice when it somes to moving SOAP
messages around. However, we must be cautious when we come to mixing SOAP
with other protocols and consider what is actually happening.

In the cases of RMI, IIOP and DCOM, there are already standardized ways of
constructing RPC style communications. So using them to deliver SOAP
messages which in turn may deliver RPC is possible, but unproductive.

The one place where things become interesting is (as usual) at the domain
intersection... ;)

 cheers
   --oh