SOAP Toolkit Previews NGWS Messaging

Developers can get an early look at Microsoft’s new message layer for Web services with the pre-release SOAP Toolkit for Visual Studio. SOAP, the Simple Object Access Protocol, defines a platform-independent messaging protocol that enables programs to call other programs over the Internet. Microsoft has slated SOAP for a starring role in the next version of COM, COM+ 2.0, which underpins its recently announced Next Generation Windows Services initiative. (For more details about NGWS, see “Microsoft Announces the Next Generation Windows Services Initiative.”)

The SOAP toolkit provides a wizard and library for turning COM/COM+ applications into SOAP-enabled Web services, and for building client applications that use the services. Both services and clients rely on Microsoft’s new (proprietary) Service Description Language (SDL), an XML-based language for describing the interfaces provided by Web services. The toolkit also includes an implementation of SOAP that plugs into the Internet Information Services (IIS) Web server. Full source code is provided for everything except the wizard.