News
Software AG Announces Support for SOAP
- By Scott Bekker
- December 12, 2000
Microsoft’s Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) initiative
continues to build momentum and gain acceptance, as
Software AG Inc. became the latest
company to announce support for Microsoft’s emerging standard for electronic
communication over the Internet on Monday. Software AG has added SOAP support
to two of its XML-based products, Tomino X-Bridge and Entire X.
Based on XML technology, SOAP is beginning to make waves
because of its ability to quickly define a messaging format and facilitate
communication between different architectures.
Although business transactions over the Internet have grown
drastically over the past few years, companies still face problems because of
the difficulties of communicating between different application components and
object architectures.
Typically, Remote Procedure Calls (RPCs) act as brokers
between technologies such as COBRA and DCOM when carrying out tasks like credit
card processing. However, this requires the same technologies being used on
both side of the communication transaction. With Hypertext Transfer Protocol,
SOAP circumvents this obstacle.
The addition of SOAP technology will allow Software AG to
offer integration products that enable faster communication between distributed
applications.
Both EntireX and Tamino X-Bridge are middleware products. A
XML wrapper, EntireX can now convert SOAP-based calls to traditional RPC’s,
enabling communications with existing applications. X-Bridge works with
user-defined rules, forwarding incoming XML documents to the right
applications. – Jim Martin
About the Author
Scott Bekker is editor in chief of Redmond Channel Partner magazine.