Testing for SOAP Interoperability

The one big reason why many enterprises look to Web Services for increased operational efficiency is the promise of cross-platform, cross-language interoperability, and increased operational scope, especially for the small and medium-sized enterprises. This promise, in reality, has not been completely fulfilled to date, as we still encounter interoperability problems, particularly with Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) and Web Services Description Language (WSDL). In this paper we look at SOAP and WSDL, in both cases version 1.1, and in more detail at the interoperability testing available.