[IP] Site Finder Confuses SOAP Implementations

[Dave Farber <dave@farber.net>]

> Delivered-To: dfarber+@ux13.sp.cs.cmu.edu
> Date: Mon, 29 Sep 2003 13:09:12 -0400
> From: noah_mendelsohn@us.ibm.com
> Subject: Site Finder Confuses SOAP Implementations
> To: Dave Farber <dave@farber.net>
>
> (This is my first attempt to submit to IP...if this is not the appropriate
> way to go about it, please accept my apologies.  Thank you.)
>
> Dave,
>
> As many of your readers are probably aware, SOAP [1,2] is an XML-based
> protocol for connecting applications over the Web.  Implementors of SOAP
> engines maintain a mailing list called "soapbuilders", on which they
> discuss implementations and debug interoperability problems.
>
> According to soabuilders postings over the past couple of days [3,4], the
> Verisign Site Finder service is causing trouble for at least some SOAP
> implementations.  This is not surprising, I suppose, since Site Finder
> makes the erroneous assumption that users of HTTP are invariably human
> beings sitting at a Web browser.  In fact, HTTP is the preferred protocol
> for most document-based interactions on the Web, including
> application-to-application or machine-to-machine, and SOAP layers on HTTP.
>  In general, SOAP implementations would want redirects only in the
> particular case that a web service had truly moved from one DNS address to
> another.  I suspect that most current users of SOAP don't employ such
> redirects, and that early SOAP implementations probably don't support them
> gracefully.  In any case, it's very unlikely that a SOAP implementation
> accessing a web service using a mis-spelled URL would benefit from a
> redirect to a site such as Site Finder.
>
> I have no direct involvement with the implementations discussed in the
> soapbuilders postings, and have not observed the Site Finder/SOAP problem
> first hand, but I thought IP readers might be interested.  Thank you.
>
> Noah
>
> [1] http://www.w3.org/TR/soap12-part1/
> [2] http://www.w3.org/TR/soap12-part2/
> [2] http://groups.yahoo.com/group/soapbuilders/message/9475
> [3] http://groups.yahoo.com/group/soapbuilders/message/9476
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------
> Noah Mendelsohn                              Voice: 1-617-693-4036
> IBM Corporation                                Fax: 1-617-693-8676
> One Rogers Street
> Cambridge, MA 02142
> ------------------------------------------------------------------

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