Updated: July 13, 2020 (September 1, 2000)

New Specs, Tools Support SOAP

As managing vice president, Rob Helm covers Microsoft collaboration and content management. His 25-plus years of experience analyzing Microsoft’s technology... more

Microsoft has released new specifications and updated tools to support the Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP). SOAP enables an application to remotely call functions of a software component (called a Web service) over standard Web infrastructure. New releases include the following:

A new draft protocol lets client applications locate Web services. The SOAP Discovery (DISCO) protocol fills an important gap in SOAP, which doesn’t specify how applications find a Web service or learn what functions it implements. DISCO enables clients to query a site for Web services and retrieve service descriptions in the SOAP Contract Language (SCL). Microsoft will be using DISCO and SCL in its tools for building Web services. For example, the next version of Visual Basic will use DISCO to support “drag-and-drop” incorporation of Web services into applications. (See “Visual Basic 7 to Take on Server-Side Java” on page 15 of the Apr. 2000 Update.) Note that Microsoft hasn’t yet submitted DISCO or SCL

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