Basics of SOAP webservice

SOAP web services depends on some technologies and some protocols to transport and to transform data between consumer and provider.

• XML is the base foundation on which SOAP web services are built.

• Web Services Description Language (WSDL) defines the protocol, interface, message types, and interactions between the consumer and the provider. Basically you can say WSDL contains the contract details for using any webservice.

• SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) is a message-encoding protocol based on XML, It defines an envelope for communication via web services.

• Data or Messages are exchanged or transferred using a transport protocol. Although Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is the  mainly adopted protocol, others protocol such as SMTP or JMS can also be used.

• Universal Description Discovery, and Integration (UDDI) is an optional service registry and discovery mechanism; It used for storing and categorising SOAP web services interfaces (WSDL).

Ref : Beginning of JavaEE 7