Date: Aug. 29, 2001
Link: http://www.onjava.com/pub/a/onjava/excerpt/java_xml_2_ch2/index.html
Source Author or Organization: Brett McLaughlin, O'Reilly & Associates, ONJava.com

This chapter on Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) is excerpted from Brett McLaughlin's Java and XML, 2nd Edition, from O'Reilly & Associates. The article provides a detailed definition of SOAP and its component parts, and points out the standard's position as a cornerstone of Business-to-Business (B2B) transactions.

A tutorial is provided for installing and setting up SOAP, deciding if the messaging should be SOAP or SOAP Remote Procedure Calls (SOAP-RPC), writing and accessing a service and writing and accessing a client. Open source SOAP tools from Apache Software Foundation, IBM and Microsoft are explained and examined along the way.