SOAP introduction

SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) web services are said to be “loosely coupled” because the client, a.k.a. the consumer, of a web service doesn’t have to know its implementation details (such as the language used to develop it, the method signature or the platform it runs on). The consumer is able to invoke a SOAP web service using a self-explanatory interface describing the available business methods (parameters and return value). The underlying implementation can be done in any language (Visual Basic, C#, C, C++, Java, etc.). A consumer and a service provider will still be able to exchange data in a loosely coupled way: using XML documents. A consumer sends a request to
a SOAP web service in the form of an XML document, and, optionally, receives a reply, also in XML. SOAP web services are also about distribution. Distributed software has been around for a long time,




Ref : Beginning of JavaEE 7