XML/SOAP Design Issue

[Martin Wood <mw...@orctel.co.uk>]

We are in the process of designing a system for passing XML messages between remote servers over HTTP. All messages will _have_ to pass through a central server (hub) for logging / accountability purposes, which then forwards the messages to the correct destination (i.e. each remote server only knows about one address, that of the hub, which then takes care of routing the messages based on their content to the appropriate server).

The problem is that each remote server is run by a different organisation, using different tools, languages and platforms. I had hoped that sending SOAP messages would be the best option, yet all the different interoperability problems discussed here seem to indicate that SOAP is not yet mature enough to support all the different implementations? Is it really as bad it seems? I thought one of the key goals of SOAP was to be vendor neutral.

Any pointers / discussion addressing this topic (or alternative approaches to sending XML over HTTP - maybe we don't need another layer of SOAP or XML-RPC on top of the basic XML messages we are sending?) appreciated.

Regards,

Martin

-- 
Martin Wood
mwood@orctel.co.uk