Web Services

Web Services, Part 1: SOAP vs.
REST
Web Services, Part 1: SOAP vs. REST

http://ajaxonomy.com/2008/xml/web-services-part-1-soap-vs-rest
Developers new to web services are often intimidated by parade of technologies and concepts required to understand it: REST, SOAP, WSDL, XML Schema, Relax NG, UDDI, MTOM, XOP, WS-I, WS-Security, WS-Addressing, WS-Policy, and a host of other WS-* specifications that seem to multiply like rabbits. Add to that the Java specifications, such as JAX-WS, JAX-RPC, SAAJ, etc. and the conceptual weight begins to become heavy indeed. In this series of articles I hope to shed some light on the dark corners of web services and help navigate the sea of alphabet soup (1). Along the way I'll also cover some tools for developing web services, and create a simple Web Service as an example. In this article I will give a high-level overview of both SOAP and REST. Introduction There are currently two schools of thought in developing web services: the traditional, standardsbased approach (SOAP) and conceptually simpler and the trendier new kid on the block (REST). The decision between the two will be your first choice in designing a web service, so it is important to understand the pros and cons of the two. It is also important, in the sometimes heated debate between the two philosophies, to separate reality from rhetoric. SOAP In the beginning there was...SOAP. Developed at Microsoft in 1998, the inappropriately-named "Simple Object Access Protocol" was designed to be a platform and language-neutral alternative to previous middleware techologies like CORBA and DCOM. Its first public appearance was an Internet public draft (submitted to the IETF) in 1999; shortly thereafter, in December of 1999, SOAP 1.0 was released. In May of 2000 the 1.1 version was submitted to the W3C where it formed the heart of the emerging Web Services technologies. The current version is 1.2, finalized in 2005. The examples given in this article will all be SOAP 1.2. Together with WSDL and XML Schema, SOAP has become the standard for exchanging XMLbased messages. SOAP was also designed from the ground up to be extensible, so that other standards could be integrated into it--and there have been many, often collectively referred to as WS-*: WS-Addressing, WS-Policy, WS-Security, WS-Federation, WS-ReliableMessaging, WSCoordination, WS-AtomicTransaction, WS-RemotePortlets, and the list goes on. Hence much of the perceived complexity of SOAP, as in Java, comes from the multitude of standards which have evolved around it. This should not be reason to be too concerned: as with other things, you only have to use what you actually need. The basic structure of SOAP is like any other message format (including HTML itself): header and body. In SOAP 1.2 this would look something like
<env:Envelope xmlns:env="http://www.w3.org/2003/05/soap-envelope"> <env:Header>
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 </env:Header> <env:Body>  </env:Body> </env:Envelope>
Note that the <Header> element is optional here, but the <Body> is mandatory. The SOAP <Header> SOAP uses special attributes in the standard "soap-envelope" namespace to handle the extensibility elements that can be defined in the header. The most important of these is the mustUnderstand attribute. By default, any element in the header can be safely ignored by the SOAP message recipient unless the the mustUnderstand attribute on the element is set to "true" (or "1", which is the only value recognized in SOAP 1.1). A good example of this would be a security token element that authenticates the sender/requestor of the message. If for some reason the recipient is not able to process these elements, a fault should be delivered back to the sender with a fault code of MustUnderstand. Because SOAP is designed to be used in a network environment with multiple intermediaries (SOAP "nodes" as identified by the <Node> element), it also defines the special XML attributes role to manage which intermediary should process a given header element and relay, which is used to indicate that this element should be passed to the next node if not processed in the current one. The SOAP <Body> The SOAP body contains the "payload" of the message, which is defined by the WSDL's <Message> part. If there is an error that needs to be transmitted back to the sender, a single <Fault> element is used as a child of the <Body>. The SOAP <Fault> The <Fault> is the standard element for error handling. When present, it is the only child element of the SOAP <Body>. The structure of a fault looks like:
<env:Fault xmlns:m="http://www.example.org/timeouts"> <env:Code> <env:Value>env:Sender</env:Value> <env:Subcode> <env:Value>m:MessageTimeout</env:Value> </env:Subcode> </env:Code> <env:Reason> <env:Text xml:lang="en">Sender Timeout</env:Text> </env:Reason> <env:Detail> <m:MaxTime>P5M</m:MaxTime>
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</env:Detail> </env:Fault>
Here, only the <Code> and <Reason> child elements are required, and the <Subcode> child of <Code> is also optional. The body of the Code/Value element is a fixed enumeration with the values:
VersionMismatch:
this indicates that the node that "threw" the fault found an invalid element in the SOAP envelope, either an incorrect namespace, incorrect local name, or both. MustUnderstand: as discussed above, this code indicates that a header element with the attribute mustUnderstand="true" could not be processed by the node throwing the fault. A NotUnderstood header block should be provided to detail all of the elements in the original message which were not understood. DataEncodingUnknown: the data encoding specified in the envelope's encodingSytle attribute is not supported by the node throwing the fault. Sender: This is a "catch-all" code indicating that the message sent was not correctly formed or did not have the appropriate information to succeed. Receiver: Another "catch-all" code indicating that the message could not be processed for reasons attributable to the processing of the message rather than to the contents of the message itself.
Subcodes, however, are not restricted and are application-defined; these will commonly be defined when the fault code is Sender or Receiver. The <Reason> element is there to provide a human-readable explanation of the fault. The optional <Detail> element is there to provide additional information about the fault, such as (in the example above) the timeout value. <Fault> also has optional children <Node> and <Role>, indicating which node threw the fault and the role that the node was operating in (see role attribute above) respectively. SOAP Encoding Section 5 of the SOAP 1.1 specification describes SOAP encoding, which was originally developed as a convenience for serializing and de-serializing data types to and from other sources, such as databases and programming languages. Problems, however, soon arose with complications in reconciling SOAP encoding and XML Schema, as well as with performance. The WS-I organization finally put the nail in the coffin of SOAP encoding in 2004 when it released the first version of the WS-I Basic Profile, declaring that only literal XML messages should be used (R2706). With the wide acceptance of WS-I, some of the more recent web service toolkits do not provide any support for (the previously ubiquitous) SOAP encoding at all. A Simple SOAP Example Putting it all together, below is an example of a simple request-response in SOAP for a stock quote. Here the transport binding is HTTP. The request:
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GET /StockPrice HTTP/1.1 Host: example.org Content-Type: application/soap+xml; charset=utf-8 Content-Length: nnn <?xml version="1.0"?> <env:Envelope xmlns:env="http://www.w3.org/2003/05/soap-envelope" xmlns:s="http://www.example.org/stock-service"> <env:Body> <s:GetStockQuote> <s:TickerSymbol>IBM</s:TickerSymbol> </s:GetStockQuote> </env:Body> </env:Envelope>
The response:
HTTP/1.1 200 OK Content-Type: application/soap+xml; charset=utf-8 Content-Length: nnn <?xml version="1.0"?> <env:Envelope xmlns:env="http://www.w3.org/2003/05/soap-envelope" xmlns:s="http://www.example.org/stock-service"> <env:Body> <s:GetStockQuoteResponse> <s:StockPrice>45.25</s:StockPrice> </s:GetStockQuoteResponse> </env:Body> </env:Envelope>
If you play your cards right, you may never have to actually see a SOAP message in action; every SOAP engine out there will do its best to hide it from you unless you really want to see it. If something goes wrong in your web service, however, it may be useful to know what one looks like for debugging purposes. REST Much in the way that Ruby on Rails was a reaction to more complex web application architectures, the emergence of the RESTful style of web services was a reaction to the more heavy-weight SOAP-based standards. In RESTful web services, the emphasis is on simple pointto-point communication over HTTP using plain old XML (POX). The origin of the term "REST" comes from the famous thesis from Roy Fielding describing the concept of Representative State Transfer (REST). REST is an architectural style that can be summed up as four verbs (GET, POST, PUT, and DELETE from HTTP 1.1) and the nouns, which are the resources available on the network (referenced in the URI). The verbs have the following operational equivalents:
HTTP CRUD Equivalent ==============================
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GET POST PUT DELETE read create,update,delete create,update delete
A service to get the details of a user called 'dsmith', for example, would be handled using an HTTP GET to http://example.org/users/dsmith. Deleting the user would use an HTTP DELETE, and creating a new one would mostly likely be done with a POST. The need to reference other resources would be handled using hyperlinks (the XML equivalent of HTTP's href, which is XLinks' xlink:href) and separate HTTP request-responses. A Simple RESTful Service Re-writing the stock quote service above as a RESTful web service provides a nice illustration of the differences between SOAP and REST web services. The request:
GET /StockPrice/IBM HTTP/1.1 Host: example.org Accept: text/xml Accept-Charset: utf-8
The response:
HTTP/1.1 200 OK Content-Type: text/xml; charset=utf-8 Content-Length: nnn <?xml version="1.0"?> <s:Quote xmlns:s="http://example.org/stock-service"> <s:TickerSymbol>IBM</s:TickerSymbol> <s:StockPrice>45.25</s:StockPrice> </s:Quote>
Though slightly modified (to include the ticker symbol in the response), the RESTful version is still simpler and more concise than the RPC-style SOAP version. In a sense, as well, RESTful web services are much closer in design and philosophy to the Web itself. Defining the Contract Traditionally, the big drawback of REST vis-a-vis SOAP was the lack of any way of specifying a description/contract for the web service. This, however, has changed since WSDL 2.0 defines a full compliment of non-SOAP bindings (all the HTTP methods, not just GET and POST) and the emergence of WADL as an alternative to WSDL. This will be discussed in more detail in coming articles. Summary and Pros/Cons
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SOAP and RESTful web services have a very different philosophy from each other. SOAP is really a protocol for XML-based distributed computing, whereas REST adheres much more closely to a bare metal, web-based design. SOAP by itself is not that complex; it can get complex, however, when it is used with its numerous extensions (guilt by association). To summarize their strengths and weaknesses: *** SOAP *** Pros:

Langauge, platform, and transport agnostic Designed to handle distributed computing environments Is the prevailing standard for web services, and hence has better support from other standards (WSDL, WS-*) and tooling from vendors Built-in error handling (faults) Extensibility
Cons:

Conceptually more difficult, more "heavy-weight" than REST More verbose Harder to develop, requires tools
*** REST *** Pros:

Language and platform agnostic Much simpler to develop than SOAP Small learning curve, less reliance on tools Concise, no need for additional messaging layer Closer in design and philosophy to the Web
Cons:

Assumes a point-to-point communication model--not usable for distributed computing environment where message may go through one or more intermediaries Lack of standards support for security, policy, reliable messaging, etc., so services that have more sophisticated requirements are harder to develop ("roll your own") Tied to the HTTP transport model
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Web Services, Part 2: WSDL and WADL

Part 1 of this series talks about SOAP vs. REST. In this installment I'll discuss the reasons for defining the web service contract between client and server, the existing methods for doing it, and the important concepts of each. Defining the Contract An important part of any web service is the contract (or interface) which it defines between the service and any clients that might use it. This is important for a number of reasons: visualization with tools, interaction with other specifications (e.g., web service choreography), code generation, and enforcing a high-level agreement between the client and service provided (that still gives the service freedom to change the underlying implementation). Taken together, they give pretty compelling use cases for having web services contracts, although advocates of minimalism may disagree. When IBM, Microsoft, and Ariba submitted WSDL 1.1 to the W3C in 2001 as a language for describing web services in conjunction with SOAP 1.1, HTTP POST and GET, and MIME, it quickly became a standard used by every SOAP toolkit. This happened in spite of the fact that it never progressed beyond being a W3C Note (which, according to W3C, is a document available for "discussion" and not officially endorsed by the W3C). In fact, though there is both a WSDL 1.1 and 1.2, WSDL 2.0 is the only version of the specification officially endorsed by the W3C. With the rise in popularity of RESTful web services, there also became a need to describe contracts for these types of web services as well. Although WSDL 2.0 attempts to fill the gap by providing support for HTTP binding, another specification fills this need in an arguably better way: WADL , a specification developed at Sun by Marc Hadley. Though it has not been submitted to any official standards body (OASIS, W3C, etc.), WADL is promising because of its more comprehensive support for REST-style services. Contract-First Development In general there are two different approaches to development of web services in the real world: code-first or contract-first. Code-first is where existing code (generally methods/functions) is turned into a web service using tooling, e.g. the java2wsdl script in Apache Axis. Contract-first is where the actual web services contract is developed first (usually in WSDL), then this is then associated with the appropriate implementation--often using code generation with a tool such as the wsdl2java script in Apache Axis. Though code-first is a highly popular approach, contract-first is generally considered to be best practice in order to shield the consumers of a service from changes in the underlying code base. By providing an XML-based contract, you are also protecting the client from the vagaries of how different Web Service toolkits generate contracts from code, differences in the way that language
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types are translated to XML types, etc. Though writing WSDL or WADL rather than code may involve some additional learning curve at the beginning, it pays off in the long run with more robustly designed services. WSDL 1.1 An official W3C standard, the Web Services Description Language (WSDL) is an XML language for describing web services. WSDL 1.1 (which is still in wide use) has five major elements--types, message, portType, binding, and service--in that order (figure 1 below); all these major elements may be defined 0 or more times in a WSDL document, except for <types>, which may be 0 or 1 time. Here's a short description of each:
<types>:
This is where XML types to be used in the WSDL document are defined. Traditionally, this has meant using XML Schema, but newer versions of WSDL also support Relax NG. <message>: This is the section where the input or output parts of an operation are defined, i.e. the "parameters" or "return types". It may have multiple child <part> elements, though WS-I forbids the use of more than one part per message in a document literal style service. The <part> itself may have an element (referring to a qualified XML element) or a type (referring to an XML Schema type) attribute; the later is use in RPC/encoded style services, the former in RPC/literal or Document/literal style services (see WSDL Styles). <portType>: Here is where the operations that a web service offers are defined in terms of messages (input and output, with faults). Faults (referring to SOAP faults here) are the web service equivalent of the exception in languages like C++ or Java; most SOAP toolkits will translate SOAP faults into exceptions at runtime. <binding>: This is the "how" of a service, specifying the binding of the operations defined in the portType(s) to specific protocols, such as SOAP. <service>: This is the "where" of the service, specifying the address where a bound operation may be found.
These sections do not necessarily have to reside in the same XML document. In fact, it is common for there to be at least two different WSDL files, where one imports the other (see Abstract and Concrete WSDLs).
<definitions> <types>?  </types> <message>* <part element="..." or type="..."/>* </message> <portType>*  <operation>* <input message="..."/>? <output message="..."/>? <fault message="..."/>* </operation>
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</portType> <binding>* <operation>  </operation> </binding> <service>* <port name="..." binding="...">  </port> </service> </definitions>
Figure 1: Major elements of WSDL 1.1. (1) At first blush, having all these different parts of WSDL seems a bit overly complex--after all, do you really need to define both a part (message) for an operation as well as an operation separately (this was my first reaction...)? Well, WSDL 1.1 was created to be highly decoupled, and to maximize reuse of every possible piece; for example, one can define a message that can be used both as an input or an output, or can be used by multiple port type operations. The end result of this structure, however, was a bit unnecessary and hard to read, so the authors of the WSDL 2.0 improved this by removing the <message> section, and using defined elements instead. WSDL 2.0 WSDL underwent a major renovation in version 2.0, changing the root tag to <description>, and ushering in many other changes and additions. I've already covered much of the structure in WSDL 1.1, so here I will describe mainly the differences:
<interface>:
As the name implies, this section tends to resemble interfaces in Java, which makes sense since they serve very similar purposes. Like interfaces, they can define multiple operation "signatures" and can be extended for reusability. The <interface> replaces the <portType> of WSDL 1.1, and adds explicit input faults and output faults. The child <operation> elements here can also explicitly define messageexchange patterns in their pattern attribute (see below). <binding>: This element has children that are identical to those of the interface, so that a binding can be specified for each. The major difference over version 1.1 is that bindings are re-usable. To be re-usable the binding simply omits the interface attribute; it may be specified later in the service declaration. <service>: Child <port> are replaced by similar <endpoint> elements.
WSDL 2.0 also defines an explicit HTTP binding to all the methods: GET, POST, PUT, and DELETE. This becomes important for RESTful style web services. In essence, though, WSDL is service rather than resource oriented, so the fit with RESTful services is not as natural as it is in WADL.
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<description> <types>?  </types> <interface name="..." extends="...">* <fault element="..."/>* <operation pattern="..message pattern uri..">* <input element="..."/>* <output element="..."/>* <infault ref="..some fault..."/>* <outfault ref="..some fault"/>* </operation> </interface> <binding interface="..."?>  </binding> <service interface="...">  <endpoint binding="..." address="..."/>* </service> </description>
Figure 2: Major elements of WSDL 2.0. (1) WSDL Styles This developerWorks article does a great job of explaining the different styles of WSDL, so I will only summarize briefly here. In general, an RPC (or "remote procedure call") style service will define the references in its message parts as XML Schema types; a Document style service will define element references on its message parts (the soap:binding will use the appropriate style attribute). An Encoded style will encode the types of the children of the soap:body in the SOAP message; a literal style will not encode them, but leave them as literal XML elements (the binding of input and output messages will have the appropriate use attribute). RPC vs. Document (where "ns:myElement" is a reference to a defined element) WSDL definitions
 <message name="input"> <part name="param" type="xsd:int"/> </message>  <message name="input"> <part name="param" element="ns:myElement"/> </message>
Encoded Vs. Literal SOAP Messages

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 <soap:body> <param xsi:type="xsd:int">1</param> <soap:body>  <soap:body> <param>1<param> <soap:body>
There are, generally speaking, four distinct styles of WSDL: RPC/Encoded, RPC/Literal, Document/Literal, and Document/Literal Wrapped. As explained in Part 1, RPC/Encoded, once ubiquitous, is now pretty much dead: unless you have to interact with a legacy web service, use something else. Of the remaining styles, RPC/Literal has the drawback that you cannot really validate the types in the SOAP message. With Document/Literal, you can validate the types but you lose the name of the operation in the SOAP. This is where the Document/Literal Wrapped style comes in handy: it "wraps" the body of the document payload in an element that represents the operation name (it also has the additional benefit of enforcing only one child of soap:body as mandated by WS-I). The only real drawback of Document/Literal Wrapped is that you cannot "overload" web service operation names, but this is a minor quibble. Generally speaking, using this style of WSDL is your best bet, unless your SOAP toolkit is unable to work with it. Message Exchange Patterns Message exchange patterns are the "handshake protocol" of web services. They let a client know what type (in/out) of messages or faults must be exchanged, and in what order. WSDL 1.1 defined 4 basic message exchange patterns:

One-way: An operation only receives an <input>. Request-response: An operation receives a request, then issues a response. Here the <input> child of <operation> is defined before the <output> Solicit-response: An operation sends a request, then waits for a response. Here the <output> would be defined before the <input>. Notification: An operation sends a message only.
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Using the document ordering of elements to establish the message exchange pattern was obviously a little too subtle, so WSDL 2.0 uses an explicit pattern attribute to define it. WSDL 2.0 also expands the number to 8 message exchange patterns, which can be categorized as inbound MEP (if the service receives the first message) or outbound MEP (if the service sends the first message):
In-only: Here a service operation only receives an inbound message, but does not reply. This MEP cannot use a fault. When referred to by an operation's pattern attribute, it has the value "http://www.w3.org/ns/wsdl/in-only". Robust In-only: Identical to In-only, except that this type of MEP can trigger a fault. When referred to by an operation's pattern attribute, it has the value "http://www.w3.org/ns/wsdl/robust-in-only". In-Out: Identical to the request-response of WSDL 1.1. A fault here replaces the out message. When referred to by an operation's pattern attribute, it has the value "http://www.w3.org/ns/wsdl/in-out". In-Optional Out: Similar to In-Out, except that the out message is optional. When referred to by an operation's pattern attribute, it has the value "http://www.w3.org/ns/wsdl/in-opt-out". Out-Only: The service operation produces an out-only message, and cannot trigger a fault. When referred to by an operation's pattern attribute, it has the value "http://www.w3.org/ns/wsdl/out-only". Robust Out-Only: Similar to Out-Only, except that this type of MEP can trigger a fault. When referred to by an operation's pattern attribute, it has the value "http://www.w3.org/ns/wsdl/robust-out-only". Out-Optional In: The service produces an out message first, which may optionally be followed by an inbound response. When referred to by an operation's pattern attribute, it has the value "http://www.w3.org/ns/wsdl/out-opt-in".
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Abstract and Concrete WSDLs A WSDL document can be divided into "abstract" and "concrete" portions that by convention often are defined in two or more files (where the concrete file imports the abstract one). The abstract elements are <types>, <message>, and <portType> (or <interface> in 2.0); the concrete ones are <binding> and <service>. Separating these two sections allows for maximal reuse and flexibility in defining services.
A great illustration of this principle is with WS-RP (Web Services for Remote Portlets), a specification essentially for exchanging portlet content between different servers (e.g., a Java application server and, say, Microsoft Sharepoint). WS-RP defines in its specifications all of the types and operations that will be used in the web service of the "producer". The producer server only has to specify the actual concrete WSDL. WADL WADL, or Web Application Description Language, is a specification developed to be an alternative to WSDL with specific support for RESTful web services. Whether or not WADL will be widely adopted is still an open question--certainly it would help if it were submitted to a standards body--but it is interesting nevertheless to present it in contrast with WSDL. Here, instead of providing a more comprehensive overview (the 11/09/2006 specification is very easy to read), I'll provide an example to give a flavor of how it works in the form of the ever-popular stock quote example (Figure 3 below). Notice how it defines both resources and representations, as well as the methods that can be used to manipulate the resources.
<application xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://research.sun.com/wadl/2006/10 wadl.xsd" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"
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xmlns:ex="http://www.example.org/types" xmlns="http://research.sun.com/wadl/2006/10"> <grammars> <include href="ticker.xsd"/> </grammars> <resources base="http://www.example.org/services/"> <resource path="getStockQuote"> <method name="GET"> <request> <param name="symbol" style="query" type="xsd:string"/> </request> <response> <representation mediaType="application/xml" element="ex:quoteResponse"/> <fault status="400" mediaType="application/xml" element="ex:error"/> </response> </method> </resource> </resources> </application>
Figure 3: A WADL example. WADL does a nice job of capturing the style of REST. As with any other technology, though, most will wait to use it until it sees some significant adoption. Conclusion This has certainly been a whirlwind tour of WSDL and WADL. We've covered some of the most important points here in a fairly concise fashion, but there is quite a lot which can be said about the subject. I encourage anyone who wants to dive deeper to look at the References below.
/*********************************************************************************/
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Another article
Definitions
REST
RESTs sweet spot is when you are exposing a public API over the internet to handle CRUD operations on data. REST is focused on accessing named resources through a single consistent interface.
SOAP
SOAP brings its own protocol and focuses on exposing pieces of application logic (not data) as services. SOAP exposes operations. SOAP is focused on accessing named operations, each implement some business logic through different interfaces. Though SOAP is commonly referred to as web services this is a misnomer. SOAP has very little if anything to do with the Web. REST provides true Web services based on URIs and HTTP. By way of illustration here are few calls and their appropriate home with commentary.
getUser(User);
This is a rest operation as you are accessing a resource (data).

switchCategory(User, OldCategory, NewCategory)
This is a SOAP operation as you are performing an operation. Yes, either could be done in either SOAP or REST. The purpose is to illustrate the conceptual difference. Why REST? Here are a few reasons why REST is almost always the right answer. Since REST uses standard HTTP it is much simpler in just about ever way. Creating clients, developing APIs, the documentation is much easier to understand and there arent very many things that REST doesnt do easier/better than SOAP.
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REST permits many different data formats where as SOAP only permits XML. While this may seem like it adds complexity to REST because you need to handle multiple formats, in my experience it has actually been quite beneficial. JSON usually is a better fit for data and parses much faster. REST allows better support for browser clients due to its support for JSON. REST has better performance and scalability. REST reads can be cached, SOAP based reads cannot be cached. Its a bad argument (by authority), but its worth mentioning that Yahoo uses REST for all their services including Flickr and del.ici.ous. Amazon and Ebay provide both though Amazons internal usage is nearly all REST source. Google used to provide only SOAP for all their services, but in 2006 they deprecated in favor of REST source. Why SOAP? Here are a few reasons you may want to use SOAP.
WS-Security
While SOAP supports SSL (just like REST) it also supports WS-Security which adds some enterprise security features. Supports identity through intermediaries, not just point to point (SSL). It also provides a standard implementation of data integrity and data privacy. Calling it Enterprise isnt to say its more secure, it simply supports some security tools that typical internet services have no need for, in fact they are really only needed in a few enterprise scenarios.
WS-AtomicTransaction
Need ACID Transactions over a service, youre going to need SOAP. While REST supports transactions, it isnt as comprehensive and isnt ACID compliant. Fortunately ACID transactions almost never make sense over the internet. REST is limited by HTTP itself which cant provide two-phase commit across distributed transactional resources, but SOAP can. Internet apps generally dont need this level of transactional reliability, enterprise apps sometimes do.
WS-ReliableMessaging
Rest doesnt have a standard messaging system and expects clients to deal with communication failures by retrying. SOAP has successful/retry logic built in and provides end-to-end reliability even through SOAP intermediaries.
Summary
In Summary, SOAP is clearly useful, and important. For instance, if I was writing an iPhone application to interface with my bank I would definitely need to use SOAP. All three features above are required for banking transactions. For example, if I was transferring money from one
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account to the other, I would need to be certain that it completed. Retrying it could be catastrophic if it succeed the first time, but the response failed.
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Web Services, Part 1: SOAP vs.

Web Services, Part 1: SOAP vs. REST

Web Services, Part 1: SOAP vs. REST

Web Services, Part 1: SOAP vs. REST

Web Services, Part 1: SOAP vs. REST

Web Services, Part 1: SOAP vs. REST

Web Services, Part 1: SOAP vs. REST

* REST * Pros:

Web Services, Part 1: SOAP vs. REST

Web Services, Part 2: WSDL and WADL

Web Services, Part 1: SOAP vs. REST

Web Services, Part 1: SOAP vs. REST

Web Services, Part 1: SOAP vs. REST

Encoded Vs. Literal SOAP Messages

Web Services, Part 1: SOAP vs. REST

Web Services, Part 1: SOAP vs. REST

Web Services, Part 1: SOAP vs. REST

Web Services, Part 1: SOAP vs. REST

Web Services, Part 1: SOAP vs. REST

This is a rest operation as you are accessing a resource (data).

Web Services, Part 1: SOAP vs. REST

Web Services, Part 1: SOAP vs. REST

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