This article first introduces Java SE’s SAAJ API for working with SOAP-based Web services at a lower level. It then discusses how to create a JAX-WS handler to log the flow of SOAP messages.

W3C has just released Candidate Recommendation SOAP over Java Message Service 1.0, defining how SOAP should bind to a messaging system that supports the Java Message Service (JMS).

In a nutshell, SOAP is a wire protocol similar to the IIOP for CORBA, ORPC for DCOM, or Java Remote Method Protocol (JRMP) for Java Remote Method Invocation (RMI).