AXIS: The Next Generation of Java Soap

Overview

SOAP is rapidly becoming the standard protocol used for communication in distributed applications and web services. All major vendors are currently investing heavily in supporting web services and integrating support for SOAP. One of the main problems with Apache SOAP 2.x is performance, the code was developed in an ad-hoc manner and performance and scalability weren't a top priority. AXIS implements SAX based parsing which is faster and requires less memory. The considerable enhancements should drive people to convert to AXIS from not only Apache SOAP, but other Java SOAP implementations as well.

With SOAP (the specification, not a specific implementation) undergoing radical changes, the limitations of the Apache SOAP 2.x implementation were constraining the ability to keep up with the changes. Therefore, Apache decide that a total ground up re-architecture was needed and the name was change to emphasise the scale of the changes. Upgrading current applications to AXIS will require considerable changes so there will be a demand for information on this. AXIS will be the first major Java implementation to support the latest SOAP specification and the redesign should allow it be easily updated as things change.

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