RE: XML, HTTPS, SOAP & AS/400

["Hall, Philip" <phall@xxxxxxxx>]

> I have a client who wants to send and receive XML documents 
> to and from our AS/400.  The communications MUST be secure 
> (HTTPS?), and he's talking about using SOAP to do this.
> 
> Not knowing anything about networks, and having only heard 
> vaguely about SOAP is this possible, and if so what is
> involved on the AS/400 side of things?

SOAP itself won't offer you any 'secure communications' it uses existing 
transport mechanisms to get from one place to another. Currently SOAP can be 
used over two transports; HTTP and SMTP.

If you use a secure web server HTTPS (as you mentioned), you'll get the 
encryption of the data in the SOAP message for 'free'. If you use regular HTTP 
or SMTP then you and the client will need to implement the encryption, i.e. use 
a third party product, or use Blowfish, AES, etc.

As for the AS/400 side of things, you'll need to install the SOAP 
server/services under the AS/400 webserver, and write the target program that 
SOAP will pass the incoming SOAP messages to.

--phil

FYI: Here's the SOAP site URL http://ws.apache.org/soap/index.html