SOAP is a specification for the exchange of structured information in a decentralized, distributed environment. As such, it represents the main way of communication between the three key actors in a service oriented architecture (SOA): service provider, service requestor and service broker. The main goal of its design is to be simple and extensible. A SOAP message is used to request a Web service.
WebSphere® Application Server follows the standards outlined in SOAP 1.1.
SOAP 1.1 is a protocol-independent transport and can be used in combination with a variety of protocols. In Web services that are developed and implemented with WebSphere Application Server, SOAP is used in combination with HTTP, HTTP extension framework, and Java™ Message Service (JMS). SOAP is also operating-system independent and not tied to any programming language or component technology.
As long as the client can issue XML messages, it does not matter what technology is used to implement the client. Similarly, the service can be implemented in any language, as long as the service can process SOAP messages. Also, both server and client sides can reside on any suitable platform.
SOAP 1.2 provides a more specific definition of the SOAP processing model, which removes many of the ambiguities that sometimes led to interoperability problems in the absence of the Web Services-Interoperability (WS-I) profiles. SOAP 1.2 should reduce the chances of interoperability issues with SOAP 1.2 implementations between different vendors.
The Java API for XML Web Services (JAX-WS) standard introduces the ability to support both SOAP 1.1 as well as SOAP 1.2.
See the differences is SOAP versions information for additional differences between SOAP 1.1 and SOAP 1.2.
For a complete list of the supported standards and specifications, see the Web services specifications and API documentation.