W3C recommends SOAP 1.2

Version 1.2 of the Simple Objects Access Protocol (SOAP) specification, a foundational technology for Web services, was released by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).

The revised specification, used for exchanging structured information in distributed Web services environments, features improvements like better error-handling and internationalization, an upgraded processing model and alignment with the W3C Web architecture.

Version 1.2 consists of a Messaging Framework, featuring a processing model, or rules for processing a SOAP message. The processing model removes ambiguities found in SOAP 1.1. Also included is Adjuncts, a feature for representing remote procedure calls, encoding SOAP messages and describing SOAP features and bindings.

Vendors like IBM, Oracle, and Sun have backed the specification. Oracle plans to support SOAP 1.2 in its Oracle9i database, application server, JDeveloper development environment, and E-Business Suite of applications. Sun plans to implement the specification in the Java platform and Sun Open Net Environment products. The finalization of SOAP 1.2 should be of interest to companies that have had concerns about differing SOAP implementations. SOAP 1.2 provides a more precise description of the processing model and removes ambiguities that sometimes led to interoperability problems with the 1.1 version.