WSDL SOAP XML AND HTTP

WSDL describes an abstract interface of the web service while SOAP provides a concrete implementation, defining the XML messages exchanged between the consumer and the provider (see Figure 14-3). SOAP is the standard web services application protocol. It provides the communication mechanism to connect web services, exchanging formatted XML data across a network protocol, commonly HTTP. Like WSDL, SOAP relies heavily on XML because a SOAP message is an XML document containing several elements (an envelope, a header, a body, etc.). Instead of using HTTP to request a web page from a browser, SOAP sends an XML message via a HTTP request and receives
a reply via a HTTP response.





Ref : Beginning of JavaEE 7