Any business transactions who want nothing more than security, speed and accuracy of application use SOAP for information transportation between applications. Using HTTP, developers are able to use the internet and more specifically, the browsers to ensure that the application and information transfer will never require more than a stable internet connection. Based on current technologies today, SOAP web services is stronger than ever because of the advantages it ensures.
The development of Ajax development techniques made it even better for SOAP web based services. SOAP uses XML for data transfer which is a very smart choice. As a universal data mark-up XML could practically be integrated to any browser with the full security you can expect from any mark-up protocol.
Because XML is used in SOAP and Ajax it is naturally possible for developers to build SOAP web based services using the world’s most popular web and application development techniques today. You only need to inject JavaScript to the application and you end up with a good looking SOAP web services application fully activated with the support of Ajax.
We all know though that the actual development of an Ajax based SOAP webs services is not as easy as it looks. Ajax in itself is a very complicated web development technique and SOAP will even make it harder. An application for a business setting needs a very secured and tight coding and Ajax may not be able to live up to the expectations if they are not done well.
Basically, SOAP that will be activated with the use of Ajax needs four functions: WS.Call, SOAP.Envelope and XMLHttpRequest. XMLHttpRequest is of course the most important part of any Ajax based application as it is used to bridge the information and application to the application server which, in turn, activates the web service everyone is looking for.
SOAP.Envelope contains everything that you need in the application. The header, body and the element of SOAP is contained in the envelope. The envelope prevents the original application to be sloppy or prevents the application from being used in other functions outside the envelope.
XMLHttpRequest and SOAP.Envelope will only be activated with the help of another function – WS.Call. This function initiates the communication between the SOAP.Envelope and XMLHttpRequest.
All of these functions are enveloped in a WS.JS function which is a JavaScript function along with XML as a mark-up tool.
The usually setting for SOAP web services activated by Ajax is through Mozilla and Firefox type browsers. Unfortunately, the problem in Ajax is still very applicable to SOAP web services. XML functionality cannot easily happen in all browsers. Developers might have to develop two different XML forms just to ensure XML could be read in Mozilla, Internet Explorer and other browsers.
That is basically the challenge for any Ajax based applications especially for SOAP. Although there is no easy answer to build XML for browser incompatibilities, Ajax ensures good interactivity for users. Because it uses XML as its mark-up language, Ajax is naturally the next big thing for SOAP. A little tweak on the coding especially with JavaScript ensures that Ajax will work just as expected.
